Calm Parenting Podcast - Stop Fights Over School, Screens, & Chores: 5 Tips

Episode Date: August 4, 2020

Your response to everyday situations can be the difference between a defiant, angry child and a confident one. Learn how to de-escalate situations, get kids off screens, and motivate them to push through when work gets difficult. THIS WEEK, YOU GET EVERYTHING WE'VE EVER CREATED FOR 75% OFF.This includes our No B.S. Program, Marriage Mentoring, Celebrate ADHD Package, and ALL of the Audio Programs on our website. You get absolutely EVERYTHING we've ever created.  Click here to learn about our Back To School Sale! Please share this podcast and our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/CelebrateCalm/ Want more content like this? Join our newsletter by texting CELEBRATECALM to 22828 or visit https://www.celebratecalm.com If we can help you in any way, please reach out to [e-mail].    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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no multiple step protocols, just simple scientifically validated solutions. The secret is One Skin's proprietary OS1 peptide. It's the first ingredient proven to switch off the aging cells that cause lines, wrinkles, and thinning skin. OneSkin is the world's first skin longevity company. By focusing on the cellular aspects of aging, OneSkin keeps your skin looking and acting younger for longer. Get started today with 15% off using code Kirk at OneSkin.co. That's 15% off at OneSkin.co with code K-I-R-K. After you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. So please support our podcast and tell them we sent you. So what are you going to do this year when your kids don't want to do their schoolwork? Because in the past, we as parents just kind of had to get them through their homework time for

a couple hours. But with how school systems are setting things up, you may be required for basically keeping them on track for their entire day. That's what our homeschool friends have done for years, right? They're responsible for the entire day of learning and teaching them everything. And you're going to have all kinds of variations of this going on. But you've got kids who may not want to do their schoolwork, right? They're going to have brains that work in very different ways than your brain works. And you're going to get frustrated. And you're going to get anxious and think, how, like, what's going to happen? Am I a bad parent, right? You're going to get frustrated and you're going to get anxious and think, how, like, what's going to happen?

Am I a bad parent? Right? You're going to project into the future. How are they going to be successful? And what happens when tensions ratchet up as they probably already have? And what happens if you have a child who's already shut down, but good luck getting him motivated to do his schoolwork? How are you going to handle all that?

That's what we're going to talk about today on the Calm Parenting Podcast. So we're glad you're here. This is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us at CelebrateCalm.com. Email us. We love our podcast listeners. We get emails every day. Hey, listening to your podcast, can you help us out with X, Y, and Z? And we'd love that. So you email our son, Casey. He was the strong-willed one that is responsible for all of this. So it's Casey, C-A-S-E-Y, at CelebrateCalm.com. He will provide the best customer service on the planet.

If he doesn't, let me know, and I'll deal with him. But you should hear from us sometimes within minutes, almost always within hours, almost always within hours and always within 24 hours. We are very responsible. We work all the time because this is our family mission and we want to help you. So reach out to us. So here's the genesis of today's podcast.

I am recording this on Sunday evening because we live on the Carolina coast and there is a hurricane, probably tropical storm coming. And so everybody's like, you got to prep, you got to prep, you got to prep. So I started thinking through, okay, we've got kind of a storm coming when school begins back, because you're going to have a lot of different issues going on with school, with your kids on screens all the time, kids who shut down, all the tension. So I started thinking and making a little list of like five things, five ways we need to prepare for this. And there are things you can

begin doing now. And some of these things are already happening, so may as well get to it right now. I'm going to hit all five things today, and then in future podcasts, I'll go do a deeper dive on each one of the five, so we can really, really kind of get a hold of this and prepare for it, be proactive, or in many cases, just try to de-escalate things that are already ratcheted up. So number one, your anxiety. This came from, we just did a Zoom conference session with an adoption foster care conference or agency. And you know what's really cool? This is super cool. For years, Case and I have lamented that. Well, we love doing these

live events. But the thing about a live event is we can only be in one place at a time. And there's travel. And there's all kinds of commitment, time time and energy that goes into it. We love our live events are awesome. But right now we can't do it. And so this COVID time forces you to be more innovative. And so we've started doing Zoom conferences. And what we're finding is it's awesome. You know why? Because we can be in multiple places at the same time and we can deliver the same content, the same energy, right, that we give at the live event, but we can do it for a fraction of the cost, which is awesome. Because when we got started getting in demand, we had to kind of raise your prices because then we couldn't be everywhere. And now we can do either pre-recorded sessions live sessions whatever you want but for a fraction

of the cost so it means even small school districts that want to train their teachers and I believe that our training is world class it is phenomenal training for your teachers for foster care adoptive care for parent associations we're doing some for municipalities we have on board and I'm going to get to this later, an email from a fire department. And they were like, we need some training in this. We want to help our firefighters and our policemen with this. So if you're interested, we can do this. And we'd love doing it for a fraction of the cost.

Just reach out to Casey at Celebrate Calm and tell them what you need. And we'll put it together for you. OK, it's awesome. So we get the same thing without all the germs. So number one was anxiety. So there's a mom on a, and a bunch of moms actually on a zoom session. We're like, I can already feel my anxiety rising because I can, I know what's coming. My kids are not going to want to do their schoolwork. And some kids are not going, some kids are gonna do great with online learning. They're like, so I don't have to go to school? Awesome, because I've got a lot of anxiety.

I don't really get along with kids my own age. I don't like all the negativity that goes on there and all the fluff. If I can just like do my work online, boom, I'll be done in a couple hours each day. And that's awesome for some kids. But some kids, you're going to fight with them all the time. And that's awesome for some kids, but some kids you're going to fight with them all the time and it's going to be difficult. And so you've got to start prepping for this.

And I want you to start working with on, so number one is working on your own anxiety. Here's one simple thing that I want you to begin working on. Stop projecting into the future because you are going to look at this child resisting you and not doing things that you look at. You're like, that's so easy. Look, I know you know the answer to that. If you would just focus, you would be done in 45 minutes instead of it taking three hours and you're going to lecture and get upset. And guess what? No one learns well while someone's standing over them with their arms folded across their chest, lecturing them about how they're not trying and if they would apply themselves. That's your own anxiety. There's no guilt, no blame in anything

we do, but if you want things to change, you've got to deal with yourself first because you're going to dump a lot of anxiety on this child who probably already has a lot of anxiety and your words, watch your words that come out of, why can't you ever focus, right? If you would just apply yourself and those are not motivating words, those are words that cause kids to shut down. And I understand this because you're looking at them like, why does it have to be so hard? But a lot of times you're projecting your own stuff onto your kids and you're projecting into the future. And I want you to work on that for the next week. Let's stop using those phrases. Let's notice when

it's more about my anxiety because watch what happens. Our anxiety communicates to our kids, you're not actually capable of being successful because look, you're not doing it well. And I'm projecting into the future and saying, you're not going to be successful then either. Well, why would he even try? And you're just going to have to control that. Know that that's a natural thing. Look it's a very natural thing for parents to be anxious about their child's future. But if you want things to change you have to control that. Otherwise you will sabotage their future. When you get anxious you create the very outcome that you dread. And you do that through your negative words and through lecturing and communicating that I don't think you can be

successful. So let's work on that. I've given you language before of I believe you're capable, which is really, really important. Number two, this is going to be a tough one, but we're going to have to learn how to jumpstart your child's brain. Because many of you have kids who, when they wake up, they're just not ready to go. And we're going to sit them down, which is usually a horrible way to do their school work. And we're going to start on them and expect them to get into it right away. And they're going to resist. And you're going to have to learn how to manage. You may have heard me say this. You have to learn how to manage their energy, not their time. Doing homeschooling, online schooling for the strong willed kids and kids

who have different brain structure and maybe ADHD and some other things on the spectrum, it is not about managing their time. And you will drive yourself and them crazy if you try to do that. You may have a brain that works like that. You're very linear and logical and you work in a very linear way. And you sit down, you start work at nine and you're done at five. And that's awesome. But most of your kids are not like that. They work on momentum. They work on their energy, not on their time. And you're going to have to create successes. And if you have our ADHD university program, I want you to begin listening to that. If you don't get it, because it's fantastic. Even if your kids don't have ADHD because we go over how their brains work and they work differently than yours work.

And you're gonna have to figure out how does their brain work and how can I take all the things that frustrate me and frustrate my child and give my child tools to overcome those frustrations, right? To learn how to stimulate the brain in positive ways, to figure out how to help them with recall, to process information more quickly, right? All those things, you've got to learn how to do that. So please listen to that. If you do not have it,

please look on the website. Celebrate Calm is part of our special. We're having a back to school special. If you see it on a tab, it's going to say back to school. We're starting with, it's part of the Get Everything package, which comes with the No BS program and the marriage program and everything else we've ever created. And the No BS program is really important because we go through in detail how to jump start that brain. And Case and I decided I'm going to record a special video this week on jumpstarting the brain, specifically on that. And anybody who orders the Get Everything package,

and by the way, thank you to those who have already ordered it. We have record of you. We will send that to you for free. It is a way for, that little ding was Duke Energy sending me a message about preparing for the storm. So it's very, very timely how this stuff works. So, and hopefully they don't ding again. So look that up. You'll get everything we have. We'll show you how to jumpstart. If you need help financially, if you need help with one of the other packages that we have, just look on the website, email Casey at Celebrate Calm. We will help you. It's what we do. So I want you to start working on that, of thinking of, you know what you can begin doing? Watch and observe your kids and notice how they learn best. Notice when they're listening the

most. Notice what they normally do on an everyday basis. If you're a child, you have a kid and you walk in the room and he's just randomly lying upside down off the sofa, make a note of that. If you have a child that likes to spin a lot, instead of getting frustrated, make a note of that because we can use that. We can use that to get kids to do their schoolwork. If you have kids who love being in confined spaces and they crawl under things, good. Guess where we're doing our schoolwork? Underneath something. We're going they crawl under things. Good, guess where we're doing our schoolwork? Underneath something. We're gonna crawl underneath it.

Or we're gonna have them spin while we review vocabulary words. I want to use this stuff. You have a child who's very physical, we can use that. If they like music, good. We can use all of these things. So this week, begin observing your kids and begin making a list and feel free,

especially if you get one of the packages, feel free, email me and say, hey, I've got a kid who's doing this and we'll try to put together something very specific, but I'll handle that in a future podcast as well. Number three, setting clear expectations for the coming school year. Now, here's one of the hardest things you're going to have to deal with is getting screens under control. Because what happened in most families, and this makes perfect sense, is March hit, kids came home from school, now they've got all day, nobody was really prepared to do online schooling, the schools weren't really prepared for that. Now you've got a kid home 24 hours a day. What's he going to do all day? Because you can't go outside and play with your friends, right? So

everybody just kind of went to like, well, just play your screens. Not everybody, but most people, and there's no judgment on that, right? That is a very difficult time. And it made sense to say like, well, he's not going to like read a book for 15 hours a day. So most of your kids have gotten used to in these last five months being on their screens a lot. And it's going to be difficult to go cold turkey as soon as school hits back because it's become a habit to go to. I'm going to do a whole podcast on that, But I encourage you to begin getting that under control to start limiting that. And here's the thing. You can't just cut it out.

It doesn't work. Hey, you know that thing you've been doing for five months or the last five years almost nonstop? Guess what? Don't do it anymore. You are going to have to replace that. And you're going to have to meet the same internal needs that are being met when your kids play on their screens.

There's a social aspect. There's brain stimulation. There's a challenge. There's a sense of achievement, of accomplishment because they're very good on their screens. It's the way they connect with their friends. And there's all kinds of needs that are being met when your kids are on their screens. And so you're going to have to replace that, meet those same needs with other activities. It's not always going to be fun.

Some of your younger kids, this all ties together. Some of your younger kids, if you're doing online schooling or working with them at home, you're going to have to get very active. And they're not going to want to do it and you're not going to want to do it.

But we had 1,500 kids in our home and when I tutored them and taught them and they came to our house and we did schoolwork, the first thing that I did is I put a backpack on their back, and we went for a hike. And they didn't like it. And they complained because it was summer, and it was hot, and it was humid, and they were itchy, and it was sunny. And I didn't want to do it. I just want to stay inside and play with my Legos and my screens. Of course you do. It's human nature. Nobody likes doing things that are difficult. By the way, it's not just your kids.

So don't get on them like, well, my child just shuts down whenever things get hard. Of course they do. You do too, right? Nobody wakes up like, I hope I encounter a lot of challenges today that really stretch me out of my comfort zone. That's not normal, okay. And so that's one

of my favorite phrases on the No BS program is, of course, it's difficult. Of course, like normalize this stuff. Of course, you don't want to get off your screens. Of course, you don't want to go outside and do exercise and do a hike with me. But we made the hikes fun because we hid stuff in the woods and we hid stuff all over the neighborhood. And we did schoolwork underground in drainage ditches because we called them sewers and little kids love anything that's nasty. And we mixed it up and you're going to have to do some of those things. But I promise you, you're going to be like, oh, but that's so hard. Everything in life that's worth doing is, it's going to be a little bit difficult, most things. But here's what I want you to know.

It's a heck of a lot easier to do it than literally fighting with your child and being upset and angry at your child and having them not talk to you for the next nine months, right? So when you compare things like that's hard, well, hard compared to what, right? And so I'd rather do a little bit of the hard work. By the way, when you do the hard work, you know what you're doing? You're modeling. You're modeling for your kids because guess what? They know you don't want to be out there doing this stuff either, right? Everybody's like, can we just go back to the way it was? And for some of you, going back to the way it was, was pretty awful to begin with, because you have challenging kids. So anyway, I want you to work on these things. Let's start working on that. We'll go into more detail. By

the way, if you get the programs, we have an entire program on getting kids off screens. Going Amish on your kids and cutting off electricity is an option, not a bad one. You'd never regret it. But for most of you, it's not going to happen. And just saying no is important, but you're going to have to replace it and kind of go through all the different ways we can replace screens with other things that stimulate your kids' brains. Number four, you got to start to de-escalate because some of you, it's been escalating because you've been stuck in the house forever for the last five months together. And guess what?

You're not getting any relief because this is that time of year when parents are like, man, I hate to admit it, but I can't wait till the kids go back to school. Well, guess what? They're not. Or they're going to go back and it's going to be part time. So we get this great email from this fireman. guess what? They're not, or they're going to go back and it's going to be part-time. So we get this great, I get this great email from this fireman and very, very instructive. So here's what he basically said. He's like, my wife for years has been telling me like, you need to be the fireman in our home, right? Because that's your job and you're awesome at putting out fires.

But then when you come home, it's like you escalate. It's like you pour fuel on the fire. And he was like, I never really understood what she meant because I'm a good dad. It's just I expect my kids to listen. And when they don't listen, well, I start to get on them. But it was nothing that my dad didn't do. And so he said, my wife convinced me to get your package of CDs, so I was listening to the dad's CD and it hit me. He said, when I'm at work and I respond to a call, we prepare. We don't charge

into the building. We stop for a moment. We assess it. We look at the structure. We look at where's the wind, how's the wind blowing, from what direction, how hard is it blowing, right? And we come up with a plan. Before we storm that burning building, we have a plan. And he said, it hit me when you were going through this on your programs of, at home, I just charge into the fire, the emotional fire, and I don't have a plan. Because that's one thing as a little aside here. We talk about having a plan. Have a go-to plan. Not if, but when things escalate in your home. When your child melts down because it's going to happen. What are you going to do? What's your plan? You can't just make something up in the moment because we're like,

you know what? You need to be quiet right now. i don't know why you get upset like that escalates things have a plan so because when you don't have a plan you pour fuel on the fire and this firefighter by the way thank you for your service pretty awesome what you're doing um he said emotions, I'm finding, are much harder to put out sometimes than an actual fire. Because in a fire, we try to deprive the fire of oxygen. But what I've learned is I talk a lot when my son and my kids are getting upset, and I actually fan the flames with my own oxygen. So he said he started coming up with a plan. And this is a, look, this is a beautiful, beautiful thing. When you picture a dad who for years has rushed into the emotional fire and his kids have been upset and he dismisses it and gets upset and yells at them. And what have they learned? I can't count on that. I can't count on my dad because he just,

he just gets upset at me all the time. And those kids start to shut down. But here's a dad who took this to heart, who now is coming up with a plan. This is a beautiful, beautiful thing. And with his one son, his son's name is Caleb, which by the way is an awesome name, right? If you've got a child named, we have so many strong willed kids named Jacob. Caleb is a very popular one because Caleb is like a go-getter kind of name, right? So he's like, so now he comes into the home and he assesses it. He can read body language. He's slowing himself down so that before he reacts, he can assess what's the oxygen level in here? What's the intensity of the heat? What's

going on? How's my wife doing? How's my son doing? And now he can take a knee or he comes in, changes his body posture and his tone of voice and says, Caleb, I could use some help outside. Because his other job, the firefighter, he, he does landscaping on the side. And he said, my son is one of those kids that you mention in your podcast, in your materials. He loves to shovel mulch. He loves heavy work. He loves the sensory pressure. So watch what's happening here. This is really cool. The dad has learned that all of this isn't about just his kids and his family getting upset. He has so much control by controlling himself. And now he's bonding. Watch, this is so cool.

He's turning moments that used to be a time of yelling, and I don't know why you can't do this, and son, you better shape up. All those dad lectures, he's now bonding with his son over something they both enjoy. And he's calming his son down. And they found their new routine is they go outside. So I emailed him and said, okay, so let me play devil's advocate. What happens when it's raining? What happens when it's snowing where you live? What's happening? He goes, I don't care. We go outside. If it's muddy out, all the better because we try to see who can get muddier. And he said, and I like his attitude because he's kind of a tough guy. And he said, well,

I'll counter that with this. Some of our best times have been when it rained because now we end up wrestling in the mud. And my wife at first didn't like it. And I told her, watch, this is so cool. He told his wife, he said, look, you get one of two things I can come in escalate things and you can kind of manage everybody's emotions and be resentful or I can calm our son down and we just have to deal with some mud right she's like I'll take the mud but isn't that a beautiful thing of now his wife gets to look out and see my watch almost creates a little bit of a tear thing a little bit of a choke up in my voice because I picture this with Casey how I did it wrong for so long and then we started to bond over the difficult times during the difficult times and now there's this father and his son bonding and getting messy and doing this and building things and shoveling

mulch and now he's helping his son and his son's listening. And he's like, and his dad said, it's working. So he said, I hope you don't mind, but I took your CDs to the station house. I play it now for the other guys. And many of them are very skeptical, but one by one, they're coming in saying this works. And he asked for me, he said, I've got a guy, actually a couple of them struggling in their marriage. Is it okay if I share your materials with them? And my answer is yes. If we can help more people by all means, do it. It's the beauty of the downloads that you get is

you can share it across multiple devices. And if we can get, look, if we can get a firehouse filled with these guys and we can get them to learn to lead their kids to calm and actually and with their wives connect emotionally with their wives that will change lives right they'll change the whole firehouse this is a cool cool thing so his final note by the way he said um when my wife started showing me their materials i was all skeptical and i looked i was like that's expensive we don't have to pay for that i don't make make that much money. But he said, I do my landscaping business and I figured, look, I'll do one or two extra side gigs. I make enough money from that and I'll pay for it.

And the byproduct is my son now is helping me in my landscaping business and I'm teaching him how to run a business and invoice and how to sell and do all these things. It has been an awesome, awesome thing and it's changing his family. And so to the firemen out there, this one in particular, kudos to you, my friend. That's hard work and you're doing it. You're changing generations of kids and families. You're changing your family tree, right? It's a cool thing. So I encourage you, get on the same page. Learn how to de-escalate situations.

It doesn't have to be that hard. In fact, it's not that hard if you'll do it and you'll change your tone of voice and you change your body posture and you have a plan, it's awesome. Number five, and I'm not gonna spend time because I'm coming up on 25 minutes here and I don't wanna make this too long.

You've gotta work on rebuilding the relationships. Some of you have been on your kids, on your kids. It's not all your fault. You've got difficult, challenging kids, but you do not have a good relationship with this child. And so over the summer, you can kind of let things go, right? Because there's no pressure with schoolwork and you let your kids kind of float and they can go and they can run around and they can be on their screens. But now we're going to have to start asking things to them. And now we're going to have to be in close proximity. We're going to have to start working on tough things. And if you don't have the relationship, nothing else works. Remember, we want connection before compliance. It is relationships that change behavior. Consequences will not work with your kids. You've already seen that. If consequences worked, you wouldn't be listening to this podcast. So I want to rebuild

that relationship. You're going to need to accept your child as he is. I'm going to give you one quick thing from the No BS program. It's releasing your child. It is a very, very, very, very powerful concept and very, very influential. It is a beautiful thing to do to, I release you, child. I release you, son. I release you, daughter. I release you from the expectation that you need to be just like me. I release you from the expectation that you need to do things the way I do them. I release you from the expectation that you should do things or be just like your brother or sister or your peers or other kids. I release you from that and I release you to be the person that you're supposed to be. And this all ties in because when you release your child and

accept them as they are and you learn how their brains work so you're not imposing how you do things on them and you learn how to de-escalate and you learn how to control your own anxiety so you do the opposite instead of dumping your anxiety you start speaking over your child that i believe you're capable i've seen you do these things you have a great future ahead of you because of the wisdom to see into the future i've seen you be persistent i I've seen you overcome things. You've overcome things that we don't even know about. And you've got courage down there and you've got all these great, right? When you can start reversing that and speaking these things

into your child's life so they actually know that you enjoy them and that you like them, because that's a big part of this is learning to actually like the child who challenges you all the time. And I'm not saying it's easy to do that all the time, but it's a lot easier than having a lifetime where you're just disjointed and don't have a relationship with this child. You can do it, because I didn't like my son when he was younger.

I didn't like him at all. He was difficult. Everything was difficult. He was too emotional, always upset, couldn't do anything I asked. I wonder, how is he ever going to be successful in life, right? How's he ever going to keep a job? And I didn't like him when he was little. But I love my son. I like my son. He's one of my favorite people on the planet. I like who he is. I like the fight in him. I like sometimes that he comes back at me. I can appreciate that now because it's that very quality that makes him a beast in so many areas of his life. So work on those five things. If we can help you, reach out

Casey, C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com. If you want us to do a Zoom session for your families, for your school, for your teachers, foster, adoptive care, email us. It's so affordable right now, and we're helping so many people in a different way without giving them our germs. It's awesome. If you get the No BS program, if you get the Get Everything package, it includes the No BS program, we will be sending you an extra video that I'm going to do just for you this week. If you don't want that Everything package, we've got other packages on sale. And if you need help specifically, email Casey

at CelebrateCalm.com and just say, hey, here's what's going on in my family. Here's the age of the kids. What can you do for me? And we will customize materials for you because that's what we live to do. So thank you. There's a coming storm, but guess what? It's going to be awesome. You know why? Because we're going to turn something that used to be negative into a positive. Carry with you that picture of that dad and son wrestling in the mud now instead of wrestling and fighting all the time. Now they're bonding together. You can do that with your kids. And that's what we wanna help you to do so you can enjoy them.

Thank you for listening. Thank you for being a good parent. Thanks for working so hard at this and let us know if we can help you, okay? Love you all, bye-bye.