Calm Parenting Podcast - Stop Yelling, Lecturing, & Power Struggles

Episode Date: September 12, 2017

Live Podcast from North Carolina Home Educators Convention Keynote Address: Do you need help calming your explosive household? Tired of yelling at, negotiating with and bribing your child? Do you want your child to take responsibility for his school work, chores and attitude? It’s time to stop the yelling, arguing and power struggles with toddlers and teens. How can you expect your kids to control themselves...if you cannot control yourself? It’s not your job to manage everyone’s emotions and make everyone happy! We’ll show you how to create stress-free mornings, school, dinner and bedtime. We promise you will laugh and leave with a dozen practical strategies that really work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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For additional recordings, visit nche.com. Wow, great crowd for a Thursday night. My goodness. Hey, Celebrate Calm is a group. They've got a table set up over here. The founder, Kirk Martin, has helped over 500,000 parents stop the defiance, disrespect, yelling, and power struggles with the most strong-willed children. And his strategies are concrete, practical, and work in the toughest situations. Please welcome Kirk Martin. Thank you, Freddie.

Thank you. Thank you all for coming out tonight. Just a little personal note. My son, who you'll meet, come on up, Casey, is 23. He's not going to speak. Don't act like you're going to speak. Because once he starts, he won't stop like a politician. Although the governor did a good job tonight.

Because I thought he was going to go until like 10 o'clock and start like raising cash. But our first homeschool convention when we realized that no public school would actually take Casey and keep him was right here in Winston-Salem when he was about seven years of age. So thank you all for coming out. How many of you have at least one child who's a little bit more strong-willed? Anybody? Okay. Oh, that's a lot of you. So how many of you also have a child who's a little bit more compliant and easygoing?

Right? Okay, good. Now, how many of you had the more compliant child first, right? You were like, we are such good parents. Let's have more children. And then you had the strong-willed child. See if this in general is who we're talking about. They tend to be very bright kids, not academically motivated all the time, but they're smart. That's why they're so good at arguing. They tend not to sleep at night because they're up all night thinking of ways of getting out of doing stuff. And when they wake up in the morning, when they wake up in the morning, your kids have an agenda because they know what they like and what they don't like. And what they

don't like is anything you want them to do. Anybody have those kids, right? And so you will spend their childhood saying this, if you would just do what I asked you to do, you would be done in seven minutes. But you'd rather argue for seven hours or days or weeks or years and lose everything you own. How many of you, how many of you have kids for whom consequences mean nothing, right? You will tell them, I'm going to wash your mouth out with soap and they'll say, oh, can we use Irish spring? They just don't care. And so you've tried everything. And so these kids, they're tough. And I want to give you some insight. Two places this comes from.

One is my own son, Casey. And you'll meet him throughout the conference. He'll speak a little bit. Came out of the womb with boxing gloves on, right? And he just loved to argue about everything. And I spent the first nine years of his life trying to change him until I started hearing this still small voice in my head asking me three questions. One, what if your son is wired or made like this on purpose? Two, what if by trying to change your son

you are frustrating my purposes for your child? And third question, what if instead of trying to change your son, you're the one who needs to change? And I thought that was the voice of the devil, because I'm a man. I don't need to change. It's my way or the highway, right? And as I began to change, I noticed he began to change. And so tonight we have, and throughout the weekend, a big opportunity. I know why many of you came here. You came here, you know, to get curriculum, and curriculum's awesome. Some of you, how many of you are here without your children? Oh, okay, you'll be the happy ones. So how many of you, how many of you told the grandparents or whoever's watching them,

it's a week-long conference, right? So remember to do that next year. Just say they expanded the thing. We'll be back sometime in July, right? So we have a big opportunity because you came here for curriculum. You came here to learn, be encouraged. Here's why we came and why we do what we do. I want generational change. This is important to me. The greatest gift I believe I've given my son is this. My dad was career military. He was known in our home as the colonel. So it was a ton of fun growing up, right? And I thought it was always my way or the highway. And my family had to walk on eggshells around me because every time I came home from work, my wife was saying, kids, pick up Legos, pick up Legos. Dad doesn't like it when there's mess on the floor. And nobody knew when I was going to explode.

And I believe my greatest gift I've given Casey especially is this. I've broken that cycle of yelling and screaming and being upset all the time so that when he grows up to be a father and a husband, he doesn't have to repeat that same cycle, right? And we all have that opportunity. Some of us lecture too much. Some of the moms in here, you had that martyr mother who did everything for everyone else and nothing for herself. Any of

you have that mother, right? And all it leads to is this kind of talk. After all I do for you, I cook for you, I clean for you, I do your homework half the time and don't tell dad, right? And you get very resentful. So we're going to work on tonight and through this weekend breaking those patterns because I believe we all have an opportunity to break those patterns and create a new family tree. So some of our experience came from this. I had a vision that instead of just drawing kids, bringing them into a therapeutic office, I wanted to open up our home.

So over the course of a decade, we had about 1,500 kids in our home. There's about 10 to 15 kids at a time where I could control the environment. So we wouldn't feed kids some days. You know why? Because they get irritable and they start fighting with each other. I wanted to replicate your day as a homeschooling parent with squabbling kids. I would change plans on the kids at the last moment because your kids don't deal well with transitions and disappointment. And the idea wasn't to torture kids. It was to put them in everyday situations so that we could teach them, here's how you deal with disappointment. Here's how you deal with frustration, right? Because I wanted to teach them how to deal with real life issues. Does that make sense? So what I want to share tonight and throughout the weekend is a lot of

strategies that work for these kids in particular, because it's frustrating as a parent, right? Here's day in the life of a mom, especially a homeschooling mom. Guys, come on, I gotta get up. School, school, school. Gotta start school. Gotta start school. We gotta start early because all the other homeschooling families are doing seven, eight hours a day. By the way, how many of you here are new to homeschooling? Okay. Do not ask other people how many hours a day they do their homeschooling because they'll just lie to you. Okay. Because they're going to say, oh, we do four or five, six hours a day. We start with Latin in the morning. We go into this, right? How many of you have not done any homeschooling for weeks? Don't raise your hands, okay? Look, my son is brilliant.

He's a very bright kid. We went months sometime without doing homework, okay? For the men in here, please do not do this if you want to remain married. When you come home from work, do not ask your wife, so, what did you accomplish today during the homeschool day? Because now you have just forced your wife to lie to you. Because half the time she's done nothing. And her appropriate answer is, your children are still alive. And dads, your appropriate response is, you're a good mom. And keep it at that. So, watch, stay alive. Guys, got to get to school, school, school. Let's go. Let's go. Come downstairs.

Got to eat something healthy. Got to go outside to the organic garden. I got to eat that kefir that I made you, right? I lied and said it's healthy and it tastes good, but it's not. Go on, eat the right thing. We're going to do schoolwork, schoolwork, right? And your kids don't want to do their schoolwork. And now they're fighting and they're doing all kinds of other things. And it's 1030 and they haven't done anything. It's 1130. It's 12 o'clock.

Now you're threatening to send them to the public schools, right? The whole day is just difficult at times. Now your husband comes home. You want to have a nice dinner. Dad's getting upset because Jacob won't sit still at the dinner table. You need to sit still. We're going to enjoy dinner together as a family. Anybody have that right now? Everybody's losing their appetite. Now it's bath time and bedtime. And that's when your kids want to talk and you're exhausted, right? And you already put Benadryl in their food at dinner, but it doesn't work for the strong-willed kids. It keeps them up

at night. How many of you have tried that? It doesn't work. So it's brutal sometimes. So I want to give you some tools to change this. So throughout the weekend, we'll talk about changing your kids' behavior. Tonight, I wanted to use this opportunity to talk about changing our behavior. So, first principle we always talk about is this. There is one person in life that you can control, and that is whom? Ourselves. How many of us struggle with that? Right?

How many of you ever say this? You need to calm down and get control of yourself. Anybody say that to your kids? Anybody do that today on the way to the workshop, right? We're going to the calm workshop tonight. You guys better settle down, right? And your kids are like, Mom, I hope that's a three-day workshop because we need some help with that.

Now, I believe this fully. I believe that the quickest way to change your child's behavior is to first control your own. Now, watch. There's a strong big guy up here, this gentleman. If I were to come up, that's you, so, this big guy. If I were to come up to this gentleman like this, what's going to happen? We're going to have a confrontation, right?

Now he's bigger than me, probably has a gun rack in his car, I'm not messing with him, okay? But if I do this, now what are we having? We're having a conversation. I dictated that solely by my body posture. How many of the men in here, how many of your husbands do this thing? Young man, you need to get downstairs. We need to talk about your attitude right now.

And your kids always say what? Why, of course, father. I can't wait to hear your wisdom, right? It doesn't work. And with a strong-willed child, as soon as you face off against them, what does that tell them? Oh, apparently you want to have a power struggle. Bring it on. I've been fighting people since I was three weeks old. I will reduce you to tears. And it always escalates. Is that not true? So a lot of what you're going to hear throughout the weekend from us is very counterintuitive.

And I ask you to be open to it because you're going to struggle with the strong-willed kids. Because all of you have been told the same thing. If you're clear about the rules and you follow through on the consequences and you're consistent, your kids will listen. And you've done that. And these kids simply don't care. So I'm going to teach you some counterintuitive things to do. So in my home, we had 1,500 strong-willed kids in there over the course of a decade. And I began to discipline them.

I disciplined them all as well as my own this way. When I discipline, I'd sit. And I'd sit like this. Two reasons. One, it freaks kids out because they have no idea what to do with you when you're sitting. Because as parents, this is discipline mode. Because now I'm getting upset because I'm frustrated. Because I've been up early designing curriculum for you, okay? And you won't even listen. You won't even do what I say, right? And how many of you, by the way, how many moms in here are like agenda moms, okay? You won't even listen. You won't even do what I say, right? And how many of you, by the way, how many moms in here are like agenda moms, right? You've got an agenda every day. You've got a goal every day. Okay, you're going to need to come to every session, okay? Because you're

this, how many of you, by the way, are rule followers by nature? Oh, okay. This is going to cause you to change because you have kids who are not rule followers, right? And when you tell them to do something, their first instinct is, isn't there a way around this? Or maybe I have a better way. And your instinct is, no, my way, because I know the right way to do it, right? Let's do A, then B, then C. It's the most effective way to do things.

I don't have time for your creativity. Do what I say, right? And now,. It's the most effective way to do things. I don't have time for your creativity. Do what I say. And now, all of a sudden, we start to institute. Now, we make homeschool kind of like public schools. We've got this agenda. So, we'll get to that. But, I would sit. And by the way, I'll throw this challenge or an encouragement out to you.

Next time your kids are squabbling, next time they're talking back to you, lie down in the middle of the living room floor. And I know it will sound kind of funny. Do it sometime. You will change the entire dynamic of the situation. Because watch, you're a homeschooling mom. You've got, say you've got four kids for some reason. So what happens is, watch, at any one time, one of the kids, I can't do my

work. I'm overwhelmed. And you created the worksheet from like 20 problems down to two, okay? One's overwhelmed, two are going to be fighting, and one's just melting down over something you have no idea, right? And you begin to say, you know what, guys? I know all I'm asking for is a little bit of help around here. And watch, now the parent, or I walk into the room, you know what? After all I do for you, I buy you guys all these toys, all these video games. You can't even play well together for 20 minutes. Young lady, you go to your room. You, you go. Watch, they're already upset, and then we bring our own anxiety into the situation, right? But I guarantee if you lie down on the floor sometime, they're going to look at you like,

what are you doing? And now watch. From a seated position, I have an opportunity to actually teach kids. Tomorrow we're doing a session for an hour on discipline. Discipline literally means to teach. And part of the problem with many of our strong will kids is we've just told them, cut it out, stop it, or I'm going to take away your stuff. And that was when they were five and they don't have anything left to take away anymore, right? And it doesn't work. It begins to crush your spirits. And they watch, many of your kids are going to feel stupid. They're even going to say, I'm dumb. I'm stupid. I can't do it, and they'll shut down. They'll become, they get defiant, because we don't give them tools to succeed. So when we get to discipline tomorrow, we'll talk about giving them tools to succeed, kind of changing that dynamic. So the other reason

that I would sit is this. Watch what I'm communicating. I'm in complete control of myself. My yes is my yes. My no is my no. I'm not going to beg you 14 times. I'm not going to use a really sweet voice. But I'm also not going to yell and threaten you. Because watch the two extremes we tend to go to as modern day parents. Nothing wrong with this.

But how many of us do the sweetie, sweetie, baby, mommy really needs your help? Anybody do that? Nothing wrong with that. Just stop it because it doesn't work. Because here's what the strong-willed child hears. I hope this doesn't offend you. Sweetie, baby, you scare the crap out of me. Because when I ask you to do something, you have a meltdown or yell.

So if I think, if I use the sing-songy Christian mommy voice, where I start to talk like a teenager and talk about how the Lord, they don't respect it and they don't respect you when you're talking like that. I'm not being funny. I never refer to myself as mommy or daddy when disciplining or giving instructions to a strong-willed child. They don't respect it. Some of you have, you've already said, I've got a six-year-old going on 26, right?

I talk to a four-year-old like he's an adult because, and we'll model this throughout the weekend, that even matter-of-fact tone is extremely important. Sweetie, baby, mommy. Or when we do this one, this personal pet peeve. Honey, we don't jump on the sofa. Oh, there's no we. Because we are not, I'm not jumping on it. No, that's not about me. Uh-uh. It's not happening

in my home, right? We'll get to that. So watch when the sweetie baby voice doesn't work. Then we finally get frustrated. We get to this one. You know what? You need to get your butt up in bed right now. I'm going to take away everything. That is a Sunday morning before church voice, right? You are going to be on your best behavior because we are going in to worship Jesus, right? And that is right after dad has just flipped people off in the church parking lot. It's too crowded there, right? And you were late. You were late getting to church because your strong-willed child was dawdling.

Because whenever you're in a hurry, that's when they go most slowly. And they want to show you the YouTube video of the little cats. Like, I don't care about that. We're going to worship God now. Get in the car. How many of you did that on Sunday? Yes. Now when you get to the car, you're like,

happy face is on. We're the Waltons, right? By the way, I want to throw this out there for you. We'll do it throughout the weekend. Home life is supposed to be hard. The first family, Adam and Eve, had two kids, Cain and Abel. One of the first two kids was a murderer. If you're doing better than a 50% murder rate among your children,

historically speaking, you're a good mom. Okay, so. Now that we've set the bar really low. Okay, can I watch? So watch. The fear and intimidation approach with a strong willed child does not work. You can't, they're up for the fight. They're up for it. Oh, bring it on. Right? You want to get the switch out? Hold on, dad. I'm going to run out to the backyard and break my own

switch off the tree. I'm going to whittle on it for an hour and a half and make sure it's sharp. I will come inside and pull my own pants down, hand the switch to my father. And in the middle of him hitting me, I will say, you know what, dad, I can't even feel it. When you spank me, you might want to give it to mom, right? How many of you have those kids, right? And you've tried everything. And now you're like, what are we going to do? Boarding school. I don't know. Because it's tough. So I want to give you some tools. So controlling ourselves is huge in this. And I encourage you with this. I just want to check time, make sure I don't go over. We're good on time. So for the dads in here, I'll throw this out there. And I have a lot of compassion for dads because none of our dads taught us this stuff.

I guarantee your dad never said, hey, son, when you grow up and your wife wants to connect emotionally with you, here's how you do it. Never had that talk, did he? Hey, son, when you grow up and you come home from work and you've got three kids and they have stuff all over their faces and your wife's upset, here's how you lead with calm, confident authority. Your dad never had that talk. He taught us how to hit a jump shot, change the oil, and go away on business trips because it makes life much easier when we're gone, right? How many of the wives in here kind of secretly like when your husband's away on a business?

Don't raise your hands when he's right there. Come on. We'll get to your issues later. So you probably have control issues, which is why he travels. So, right? Why else would you be a homeschooling mom? So, anyway. It's true, isn't it?

Come on. So, by the way, how many of you do? How many of you have control issues? Okay, we'll get to that this weekend. And here's the, and look, partly you have to, right? Because if you're disorganized and you don't have, your kids are going to accomplish anything, right? So you got to have a little bit. But here's the problem with a strong willed child. They will never do things the way you want them to do it. Because in your brain, you have an idea, but your kids, some of your kids, they're just

odd. Some of your kids are, how many of you have kids who lay off the sofa upside down? Any of you have those kids? Right? Look at that. Do me a favor. Raise your hands. Now look around. Look, you're not alone.

Potential play dates with other weird kids. Right? How many of you have a child who will take the cushions off the sofa, lay down on the hard part of the sofa, and then want you to put the cushions back on him, right? That's weird. How are you supposed to teach that child, okay? But I find them perfectly normal. But I want to throw this out. I probably don't have time, but I'm going to do it. I encourage you to observe your kids because your kids will teach you everything you need to know

about them by what they do. And that child that lays on the sofa, look, here's what he wants. He wants the physical pressure because he may have some sensory needs and it feels good for him. So three quick ways I can use that knowledge. Instead of just saying, why does he have to be so difficult? Why is he so different? Sleeping. Some of your kids don't sleep. Put them in a sleeping bag and shove them in a closet.

Don't tell anyone you're doing it. And your kids will sleep so well because the physical pressure, put blankets on them, the physical pressure in a sleeping bag is phenomenal. Some of your kids need to do their schoolwork underneath a table, right? Instead of sitting, because some of you are like, oh no, you're supposed to sit still at a table and sit there perfectly still and do your homework, even though all the science and research says that's an awful way to do work. Many of your kids have to be standing at the kitchen counter, moving back and forth, listening to music while they're chewing on a snack.

But we have them perfectly still. Let them do their homework in a closet. How many of your kids will do their schoolwork in a closet somewhere? Happy. You just can't tell them because people already judge you because, oh, you homeschool. We know what that means. Oh, your child's in a closet for a schoolwork? Sure.

I watched Mommy Dearest, too, right? So, but look, I use that meltdowns, which we'll do in a few minutes. In my home, I had 1,500 volatile kids, and so I had a code word for these kids. I planned for the meltdown. I knew it was coming. So when it happened, I'd say, hey, sofa. One word code word. And their job was to go in the living room, take the cushions off my sofa, lay down.

You know what I would do? I would go in, put the cushions on top of them, and lay down on top of them. And it was weird, but it was so calming because the physical pressure of laying down on top of them and lay down on top of them. And it was weird, but it was so calming because the physical pressure of laying down on top of them was awesome. Now we had a great conversation because I wasn't looking them in their eyes saying, look at me, look at me, look at me when I'm talking to you. Because all the research says most of your strong will kids listen best when they're not looking the adult in the eyes. But that freaks Christian parents out because you think if they're not looking at you, they're not paying attention, being respectful. But many of your kids, the only time they get any kind of eye contact is

when they do things wrong. Does that make sense? It's a little bit odd, but learning how to control yourself is huge in this, okay? So I want to do two examples for you, kind of to demonstrate this. And throughout the weekend, we'll get to a lot more different examples, but I want to do two examples for you, kind of to demonstrate this. And throughout the weekend, we'll get to a lot more different examples, but I want to do two of them in specific. Let's do the meltdown one. How many of your kids kind of volatile time, emotional, right? And they get really upset. So here's what I want, some phrases. We call, when kids are upset, we call it being emotionally on fire. So picture this. Your child runs into the living room with flames shooting off their body. What is your first instinct as a parent? Stop, drop, and roll. Put out the fire. But here's what we do as parents. Great. How many times have

I told you not to play with matches? Now you're going to burn to death. Dinner's going to be ruined. Hope you're proud of yourself, right? Because when kids get upset and yell, what do we do? We tend to get upset and yell because we expect the four-year-old and the 14-year-old to calm down, but we often can't calm down. So we'll talk a lot throughout the weekend of giving our kids two things. One is wisdom, because I want to give kids wisdom. I don't want to just tell them, cut it out, stop it. I want them to know why they're doing what they're doing so I can teach them. And two, I want to give them tools. So here's the tool that we use in this situation. It's a great simple phrase. Motion changes emotion, because here's what's happening. I'm angry. I'm frustrated. By the way, many of your most defiant children, and I know you have them, they're not really defiant kids. What they are

usually is really frustrated kids. Very, very bright kids. Very, very frustrated kids who act out defiantly. But it's not a defiance inside of them so much as it's frustrating. Does that make sense? Because if they're just defiant kids, all I have to do is clamp down, stop being defiant. I can't help them. But if I've got a frustrated child, I can help that child not be frustrated. And then all the other shutdown and being overwhelmed goes away. So here's the tool. Motion changes emotion. Here's why. I'm angry. I'm frustrated. I'm upset. So I'm going to hit or kick or spit or bite or throw things or scream or yell. And you just say, calm down, honey. Use your words. Use your words. And you know what your kids are thinking? You don't want

me to use my words right now because I'll get grounded for those words. You can't process language when you're upset. Or we'll say, you need to go time out. Think about your actions for the next five minutes. Oh, you want me to sit and stew over all the reasons I'm losing everything I own? You're going to get a chair through the window. So the idea of motion or movement, motion changes emotion. Motion or movement, the idea of movement is it's a tool to help your child calm down in the first place. How many of you have seen this work? Once your child is calmed down, how many of them will show contrition and many of them will beat themselves up, say, I'm dumb, I'm stupid, I should lose all

my stuff for a month. And you're like, I was only going to take it away for three days, but let's do a month, right? But in the moment, if you just start saying, you need to calm down, young man. I'm going to take away everything you own, then it escalates, right? So I'll give you two kind of examples. One for older kids. This is one based on my, with my son. When Casey was about 12, he'd come at me with that tone. How many of you know that tone?

And you have every right to say, young man, you will not use that tone with me to your room for the rest of your life, because that's all that ever happens. We'll get to this in more detail. Watch what happens when our kids are upset. We tend to send them away from us, when in fact, at that very moment is when I want to draw them to me, because that's the model God uses. God doesn't say, you know what, you're really messed up right now. You need to go figure stuff out and then come talk to me when you're in a good place. No, God says, oh, I can tell something's wrong with you.

You need to come to me right now. Does that make sense? So in the long run, I don't want to send kids to their rooms. I want to draw them to me. So wisdom and tools. I'd look at Casey and say, Casey, every time I hear that tone in your voice, what it tells me is you're anxious, you're frustrated, or you're hungry. Those were his three triggers. Two options, son. You may continue to talk to me like that if you want. They can, unless

you're willing to rip out their eyeballs or tongues. They can talk back and roll their eyes, just not without a consequence. You may continue to talk back to me if you want. It's not going to end well for you. You're going to lose all your stuff. But if you want to grab some chips, I'll grab some salsa. I'll meet you out on the back porch, deck, basement, whatever. I'll help you with whatever you're struggling with. I love chips and salsa. It saved our relationship. I was on that kid from the time he came out of the womb. Nothing he did was good enough. And that night that I finally said, get some chips and I'll get some salsa, because I wasn't calm yet then, right?

You know why I love chips and salsa? You never see two people eating chips and salsa yelling at each other, do you? You throw in a couple margaritas, everybody's happy, right? But watch, it changes the dynamic from, young man, we need to talk about your attitude right now. Now it's instantly defensive. But when I look at my child and say, something's going on with you, not sure what it is, but I don't think you want to act like that because my assumption is you don't want to lose all your stuff and you don't want to be in trouble all the time. So if you want to grab a football and go outside and you want to play catch with me, I'll teach you how to make a better

choice next time. Does that make sense? Because otherwise every time it's just going to be like, you're not going to use that tone, wipe that smirk off your face, constant negative, negative. So we're eating chips and salsa now. We're together and I'm teaching him, I'm getting to the root of his frustration. I'm teaching him how to handle it better next time. I've got to do this quickly tonight because we don't have a lot of time. Little kids, I'll give you three examples when they're getting upset. Hey, Jacob, do me a favor. Go in the living room, dump your Legos out.

In about 22 seconds, I'll build a spaceship with you. Some of your kids love Legos. I love giving little kids something tactile to do with their hands when they're upset. It's a tool because think about this. I don giving little kids something tactile to do with their hands when they're upset. It's a tool, because think about this. I don't know how to calm down. How many of you, when you get frustrated, life feels like it's out of control, how many of you go to your kitchen and clean your kitchen sink? Any of you do that, and you walk by that thing all day long, because you're like, the rest of my life is out of control,

but that kitchen sink is spotless. And it feels good. When that kid's playing with his Legos, here's what he's thinking. I'm angry and I'm frustrated. I don't know how to calm down, but I do know how to build a spaceship. And I gave him something very specific and concrete. Now, you're just going to have to discern if he's manipulative and throws his hands. Mom, can I get my Legos out? No. Okay, we'll get to that. Coloring. Coloring is a phenomenal tool.

And you can use this with a four-year-old or your teenage daughter. Say it's my daughter, okay, four years old. I can do the whole, Rebecca, Rebecca, get off the floor. Your dress is going to get dirty. As if they care. Instead, I control myself first, and I start drawing. Now, my daughter doesn't know I'm drawing a picture of strangling her in the moment, but this is therapeutic for me. And watch, I hold up a crayon. Never look kids in the eyes when they're upset. Everybody says do that. Your kids are filled, many of your strong-willed kids are filled with shame.

That's why when you bring up something, we need to talk about your behavior. Oh, why don't we just spend like an hour every night going through all the things I did wrong? Very first thing a human being experienced on earth was shame. Adam, who ate from the tree, what was his first response? She did it. How many of your kids lie? Why do they lie? The lying isn't the issue. The shame is the issue. And the shame came because many of your kids don't have impulse control and self-control. And we're going to teach that throughout the weekend. Does

that make sense? The lie is the cover-up. Yeah, she made me do it. Okay. There's shame in there. So I hold up the crayon and I start calling and say, Hey honey, I'm calling this veggie tails. You want to come color with me? And it may take her a few minutes, but when that daughter comes over and grabs that little crayon, by the way, here's how she's going to grab it like that. And you'd be so tempted to say, you know what? Calm guy said to color with you when you're upset. But if you're going to grab the crayon disrespectfully, I'm not going to color with you. Because now I was on the way to calm and she didn't do it the right way. And now I've got three more hours because she didn't grab the crayon and say, mother, thank you so much for

modeling calm for me. They're not going to do that because they're kids. Your husbands can't even do that. You can't do that. So I'm not expecting a five-year-old. But now watch, I've got two people coloring. Things are calming down. Final example for the men in here. When you come home from work, you're in aisle three right at Target or Walmart. Your kid's freaking out on the floor. You've got every right to say, get Jacob, get up off the floor. Nothing wrong with that, but it escalates. Picture dad doing this. Hopefully I can do this with the mic on. Dad gets down on the floor in the living room or aisle three in Target and starts doing push-ups. Now, it's weird, but you have weird kids and weird stuff works. And I guarantee

what's going to happen is that kid's going to look over and say, what's my dad doing push-ups for in the middle of aisle three? And I get to look over and say, Jacob, my dad doing push-ups for in the middle of aisle three? And I get to look over and say, Jacob, come on, you want to do 10 with me? If you did 10 push-ups every time you got upset, you'd be ripped, right? So don't say that part. Think it. Come on. You want to do 10 with me? And watch the process. Instead of controlling his behavior first, I controlled my own. Because in that moment, you can't control his behavior. Because many of you have tried. How many of you have wrestled with your kids in the store? They are freakishly strong when they're upset. And so instead of controlling his behavior first, I controlled mine. And this is important. Instead

of telling him what not to do, stop it, cut it out, stop being upset. I gave him something to do. Now watch, I've got something to do with my hands as dad. I'm doing my pushups because I'm gonna strangle that little kid because he's embarrassing me in the store, right? And I feel like a failure as a parent because I've taught my children right from wrong

and he still wants everything and he's selfish and self-centered, da, da, da. All those things we put on our kids. Now I'm doing my pushups. He's doing his-ups. Sensory kids feels really good for them. And watch in every example I gave, the parent and the child are actually together now. Because when I'm together with my child, I can give him wisdom and tools to change his behavior. Now when we do the push-ups, I get to give him five, right? I give him a little fist bump and say, that was good, man. Listen, three questions, son. Every day of your life, you're going to have an opportunity to be angry, frustrated, and disappointed, especially if you watch politics. Angry, frustrated, and

disappointed, okay? You always have two options. Yell, hit, kick, spit, bite, throw things. You can do that stuff if you want. I know it doesn't feel good. But what do you want to do differently next time? You want to throw a football? You want to eat chips and salsa? You want to have popcorn with me? You want to do jumping jacks? What do you want to do? You want to pet the dog, listen to music? What do you want to do? Here's another question to ask that child. Next time, here's a good one. Next time I get upset, what could I do differently? I'll give you a challenge here for the men in here especially. Come home one night this coming week from work. Call the kids downstairs.

Guys, get downstairs. Listen, I had a bad day at work. Traffic was backed up. You guys do some push-ups with me, and I guarantee your kids will be like, Dad, we might need to do 20 with you. You look really frustrated. Watch, the dad in the home has just modeled what? I have bad

days. I get frustrated, but instead of snapping at people and slamming the front door, dad does push-ups. I guarantee your kids will start doing push-ups. Kids love their mommies, but they will do whatever their dad does. If you flip people off in traffic, they're going to do it. There's no dividing. It's like, oh, I'm an adult. I get to do it. Your kids are going to do it, right? So we have an opportunity to change our kids most by controlling ourselves first. Does that make sense? Okay, let me see if I can do one more example to demonstrate this. Oh, I'm good with time. So how many of you have kids, if you have a handout, if you got one of our Celebrate Calm handouts, you don't have to have one. You get one afterwards. I think it's on, let me see yours real quickly. Okay, good.

Turn to the second, thank you. Second page. If you turn it over, you'll see a chart with three columns. We'll use that throughout the weekend. Some of your kids are in that first column. How many of your kids have very busy brains, right? Many of your kids have busy, busy brains, always working, always working, right? How many of you have kids who are bossy? Okay, it makes it a joy to homeschool. And so, look, I'm going to give you a quick example, wisdom and tools. So I'd have bossy kids come into my home, and sometimes they'd do after-school camps for kids that went to regular school,

and I'd do homework. Sometimes we had homeschool camps. By the way, you know what we did with the homeschool kids with the camps? They come to my house during the day. This was during the school year, so I could do homeschooling with them. I would take them to the local public school where my son got kicked out of school. And while the other kids were sitting in class in prison and class, we were, now I do a lot of work in the public schools. I love our teachers, but while they're sitting in class, I'd have my homeschool kids out like right outside their window just playing and having a good time. Right? Because our kids get ostracized.

Oh, you're a weird homeschool kid. You're not socialized. Really? Okay. Talk to my son. He can talk to anybody all over the world. Your kids are awesome at that stuff. But we would just taunt the other kids that were in school because my kids homeschooled.

We were out on a sunny day playing while they were stuck in class. It was awesome. So I'm just kind of difficult like that. So they come to my house after school and they start bossing me around. Well, my initial reaction is, hey, I'm the boss of this house. Nobody gets to boss me around, which makes you sound really authoritative. And one day I got in my head and I looked at this kid and I said, Jacob, I think I know what's going on with you. By the way, how many of you have a strong-willed child named Jacob? Yeah, your fault for naming him Jacob. That's like the moms who name their daughter Zoe and wonder why she's full of life.

Anyway, so next time you have a child, just name them docile, like lays around, okay? Doesn't talk back. So I looked at him and said, I know what's going on with you. You're at school all day. It's all out of your control. Someone's telling you what to do all day long. You come to my house. Your brother and sister are here.

They're kind of irritating. All these kids are kind of irritating. When you get overwhelmed, you start to boss other people around. You know how I know that? Because I do the same thing when I'm tired. How many of us do that? When we're tired, we get bossy. So listen, you're not just being a bossy little jerk right now, because that's what we say sometimes. Stop being such a bossy little jerk. No wonder you don't have any friends, right? We say that stuff, and we should. Instead, I say, I know what you are. You're not just a bossy jerk. You're just overwhelmed right now.

So here are two things you could do that would really help me out. And I'd give them a job to do to give them some kind of ownership. Remember that kitchen sink? You feel overwhelmed. Instead of stop it, I'm giving you a tool to deal with that. So let me do this example. Do any of you have kids who struggle with new experience, anxiety or new experiences, right? Going new places. So let me do this example. What's your name, by the way? Jamie?

Good. It's my oldest brother's name. So I come home, I say, Jamie, hey, do you want to take soccer, taekwondo, whatever? Taekwondo this summer? He's like, sure, sign me up. A few weeks go by, and I say, Jamie, taekwondo tonight, and here's what I get as dad. Dad, you know, my stomach's kind of upset. I don't feel good tonight. Can we just stay home tonight? No, no. Here's what we're going to do. If we leave right now, we'll stop at McDonald's and we'll get a happy meal. Everybody will be happy. Bribery doesn't work. And when that doesn't work, we do this thing. You know what? I paid $135 for that class. Your little butt's going to be there. As if he's going to say, dad, I didn't really want to go, but now that you

explain how much it costs you, I'm motivated. They don't care. Trying to reason and explain things to a strong-willed child only invites more pushback. So we'll do that throughout the weekend. So the only thing I've left is I'm going to grab them by the forearm. I'm going to drag them out to the car. We're going to fight the whole way because you're going to like Taekwondo when you like it or not. When I was a kid, we didn't get to do this. I worked hard all day to earn money to go to Taekwondo. Kids starving in Africa, a little bit of gratitude would be nice right now, right?

How many of you ever do that stuff? How many of you ever do this one? You don't have to respect me, but you're going to respect my furniture. How many of you ever give that lecture before? That's a good one. So, the neighbors are watching. They're like, oh, good Christian homeschool family, right? Because they just watch you shove your child in the car like they do on the cop shows, right? They put the hand over the head, just get in the car.

And along the way, your sweet child's going to do this. No, I'm not going. Taekwondo's stupid. And he used the word stupid because some of you hate that word. Stupid. That's why you can't listen to Dave Ramsey, because he uses the word stupid, right? And you think he's stupid, right? Your kids know your triggers, okay? How many of your kids push your buttons? Everybody groans. You know, whose issue that is ours because we have so many buttons to push. If you didn't have all those buttons, nobody could push them. That's your issue. True. Got to be honest with that. It's not your kids know what to do. Your kids know exactly. If your kids start saying this, mother, have a blessed day, they're up to something, okay? Because Christian kids are the worst. They're sneaky because they know how to manipulate,

right? So anyway, if they ever say, of course, mother, I'd love to help you, they're up to something, okay? We will deal with, in the discipline one, I'll probably go through kind of first-time obedience, all that stuff. We'll do that tomorrow. I think it's 1235. It's really, really cool. So, and it's why none of your kids will do it, but we'll go through it. Different way to handle it. So, some of us are going to get that, no,

I'm not going. And that scares you, because now you have a child who is looking you in the eyes, defiantly looking at you, defying your authority and saying, you can't make me. And all the alarm bells go off, right? Am I saving for bail or college? Who is going to hire this child? Who would possibly marry this child? What would my parents think? I never did this when I was a kid. What have we done wrong as parents, right? All that stuff. And as soon as I hear a little bit of that defiance, I jump right and I say, you know what? You will get your butt in the car, right? Some of you will even drop the

F-bomb on your kids and your Christians because I've heard you. I know where you learned that from me because I did the same thing, okay? Because it's hard in the moment when that child's looking at you, you get your butt in the car. And what happens? It tends to escalate, right? And now you're turning into three hours. It's all night. Dad gets home. Everybody's upset because he wouldn't go to a 45-minute class. All I'm asking you to do is a 45-minute class. Your sister does. I don't know why you can't do it. Why do you have to make everything so difficult? And look, you do that stuff enough, your kid will start to shut down, and we begin to crush those kids' spirits, right? And we don't feel good as adults. So in that moment, right, when we do that, here's what I encourage you to do. And we're going to go through this. We have a thing on

defiance and disrespect and meltdowns. We're going to go through, I believe these are huge opportunities to build deep relationships with our kids, but we tend to miss that. Because in that moment, here's the process I'm taking. Instead of controlling his behavior first, I have to control mine. Because if I just jump right into it, it's escalating. Because you can say, you're going to get in the car, and he goes, not going to happen. You can't make me. And you can't physically force most of your kids because they're bigger than you.

Right? You just can't. And so it escalates. So I give you permission to not react immediately. Promptly, but not immediately. Control yourself first. Sometimes I take a step backwards and I think, look, five seconds. One, two, three, four, five.

In that situation, that's an eternity. And when I step back and watch, now I ask God for wisdom. And I assume the best about my child's behavior, which is really hard in the moment. Because you know what he is in the moment? He's a defiant little snot that makes my life difficult. And that's what's in our hearts, and I get that, right? Listen, being calm is not easy. It doesn't mean all of a sudden you go to some Zen place of like,

oh, my child's struggling today. No, you're going to want to put his little face right through the windshield, okay? You still will, even after you become calm. But being calm means I have the maturity now to control myself because every time I react to my child, it doesn't work well and I'm not modeling what I need to model, right? Is it true? Look, sometimes I will say this. Curriculum's important, but you know what? It's not that important. Your kids aren't going to remember most of that stuff. You are your child's curriculum. Don't worry about getting the perfect curriculum. You are your child's curriculum. By the way,

the governor was up here. Good guy. But he's not changing the world. He's not going to change America. The next leader of the country, whoever's elected president, obviously with the choices we have this time, not going to change America. You know who is, though? You guys are, right? Because the only thing you can really change, and this is one of my passions, is if we as Christians spent as much time trying to control and change ourselves as we did everybody else, we would be so different. They would flock to us and want to be like us. But sometimes we're so busy changing everybody else's point of view and mindset that we repel them. Does that make sense? See, it's a principle.

I can only control one person in life. When I control myself, so in this situation, when I step back and I ask God and say, what's going on with this child? And I assume the best, all of a sudden the light bulb goes off and I say, I know what's going on with this child? And I assume the best. All of a sudden, the light bulb goes off, and I say, I know what's going on. You're anxious. You're nervous because you've got a new class to go to, and there's a lot of unknowns there.

Ten minutes? Still? I'm doing really well. I'm going to slow down. So now I'm trying to fit a lot in in the first night. My son has control issues. He got that from his mother. And so I got that for me. Thank you. We're good then. So in the moment when I slow down, I give him wisdom. How many of you know in this situation, here's what's really

happening. When I came home and I said, hey, we've got taekwondo tonight, what happened in a child's brain is all the unknowns. Anxiety is caused by unknowns, things you can't control. And all of a sudden your son started thinking have I ever been to that taekwondo place? Is it going to be loud in there? What about the instructor? Is he going to be nice to me because sometimes adults aren't patient with me? What about

the other kids? See, I'm intellectually advanced so I get along better with older kids and adults, but I'm emotionally'm intellectually advanced, so I get along better with older kids and adults, but I'm emotionally a little bit immature, so I get along better with little kids and animals. How many of you kids are like that? But kids my own age, I struggle with them. So when I go to Taekwondo, are they going to be picking on me? I have auditory processing issues.

I'm not good at multi-step processes. What if I'm not good at Taekwondo? What if I'm not good? Is dad going to call me a quitter if I want to quit? No, I'm not going. And thewondo? What if I'm not good? Is dad going to call me a quitter if I want to quit? No, I'm not going. And the no is this. I'll do anything. I'll take a spanking, send it to my room.

I'll lose all my stuff. But don't make me go to that new place because the new place is scary to me. And I might fail again. So I'll take any punishment you give. And that's why they will look you dead in the eyes and say, you can't make me. You're stupid. Because they want the punishment.

Does that make sense? And see, sometimes because we don't slow down and we don't control ourselves, we miss an opportunity now to instead of seeing you as a defiant little child whose behavior needs to be changed, and I send you to your room, now I start to get to the root of it, and I say, Tanya, I know what's going on with you right now. You're not just a defiant little girl. You know what you are? You're scared, because you're going to new places. Of course it's scary, and I always like to acknowledge it. It's called the power of acknowledgement. It's very important just to say, totally get that you're frustrated.

Totally get that you're anxious. For the men in here, it is the one phrase that I want you to master with your wives. This is all it is. And wives, you've got to back me up on this. When you come home from work and your wife's frustrated, all you have to say is this, Honey, totally get that you're frustrated. Zip. But not a follow-by.

But here's my PowerPoint presentation with a five-step plan to get you out of your mood. Or this one, honey, you know, if you organize the homeschool day the way I do things at the office, if you say that to your wife, you deserve a call from the attorney, okay? I'm serious. You know what? That is so demeaning to your wife. She's never going to look at you and say, honey, I'm so glad I married you because my feelings are illegitimate, but I'm glad that your logical brain always kicks in and it feels so safe to be married to a man who's always right. She's never going to say that, okay? And all she wants is this. Totally get that you're frustrated. You're homeschooling three kids and you're married to me.

You should be frustrated a fair amount of times. Is that why sometimes that's all you want? You don't need us to fix it, right? Oh, raise your hands or I'm not going to help you anymore, okay? Trying to help here. Because look, I'm not getting on the men. Nobody taught us this stuff, right? We don't know. We know how to do work really well. I'm doing a thing on marriage one day. I don't know what day it is. Saturday morning. It's the best thing that I do, except for the next session I'm doing, which is discipline. They're all good. But the marriage thing, because we don't understand each other, it's good. So that power of acknowledgement is so calming to say, I know what's going on. You're just nervous.

Now here's the tool and I'll wrap it up with this. For your kids who struggle with anxiety, the greatest tool to overcome anxiety is not talking them through things. It is this. You got to give them ownership. And the best way to do it is this. Always, wherever you go, have another adult give your child a specific job to do. How many of your

kids are awesome for other people and just terrible for you, right? Because they'll bring them home and say, your daughter is such a delight to be with. You're like, seriously? Right? So when I go to Taekwondo and I say, hey, Taekwondo guy, my son's going to be in your class next week. Do me a favor. He's a good kid, but he loves to help other people. You give him a job to do. Taekwondo guy says, hey, Jamie, psyched you're going to be in my class.

Listen, I need you here five minutes early every week. When you come in, you're going to set up the cones, rearrange the mats. You're going to help me. You up for that? Most of your kids to other people. Got it. So mom and dad come home the next week and say, hey, Jamie, taekwondo night. Instead of all the unknowns triggering, what happens? Here's what he says. Mom, dad, remember, taekwondo guy needs my help.

Your strong will kids are like little adults. They like to feel helpful and needed. He said they're to be there five minutes early because he needs help. So we have to leave like three and a half hours early. So we're not late. Okay. How many of your kids do that stuff? Right? Because it's really hard to walk into a group when the people or kids are already there. So get there a little bit early. And when he goes into that new class, see his brain isn't focused on what if I'm not good at this? What other kids pick on me? His brain is focused on doing his specific job and your kids will do it well. And now Taekwondo guy says, you're a good helper, man. Good job. And he gives them five, five minutes early every week. You up for that? Does that make sense? Some of your kids won't go to children's church because they're anxious. Plus it's boring, right? For some of your kids, because they're like, I'm three. Guess what we did today? Noah's Ark.

I got Noah's Ark. Okay? Flood, animals, got it. Okay? And some of your kids want to sit in big people church because they want to challenge the pastor. Right? Because they're oppositional. And they'll go up afterwards and say, Pastor, I don't agree with your interpretation because I was reading Strong's Concordance yesterday

and I don't agree with it. Right? But they like to be challenged with self. I'll close it up this way. I thank you all for coming to this. I hope I see you around. We're going to get to a lot of things on discipline. I'll have a whole hour on discipline, on defiance, so we can get deep into this, on motivating. I just ask you for this, because this is different sometimes.

And everybody comes out thinking, oh, you're going to talk about my child's behavior, child's behavior. But the first thing we always talk about is our behavior. And if you really, really grasp this, this is what I'm after. In a group like this, I want 50 families. That's all I'm looking for. 50 families to say, you know what? We're changing the family tree. I got some bad patterns from my dad. I got some bad things from my mom. Great people, but they're passing it down. That stops now. And if you start to work on it, here's where Christian parents always ask me, but what if my kids, like, what if I start working on this?

They're going to know that I have issues. Oh, they already know. Okay? It's not going to be like, shocker, mom lectures too much? We never noticed, right? Dad loses it in traffic? I've never noticed. That's where I learned how to pray.

When my dad drove, I literally learned how to pray. It wasn't in church. It was when my dad driving. Okay, he's like, please, God, I'll be a priest. I'm not even Catholic. I'll be a priest if you let me live. So, but we start changing ourselves. You'm not even Catholic. I'll be a priest if you let me live. So, but we start changing ourselves. You will see generations change, and I guarantee you, practice it this weekend.

Your kids, some of you who are here with your kids, you're going to get frustrated in front of other people because they're going to be like, people are judging my job because mine's the one crying. Calm yourself down first. You will handle the situation, change their behavior so quickly. So I'm going to close up with this one. I'm not going to do a big pitch for our stuff. We have, I've got a big bag there filled with audio CDs. And I need to say this because we messed up our handout. And for one other reason, and I'm upfront about our stuff. We have audio CDs on everything from discipline, getting kids to listen the first time, stop to find some disrespect, motivating kids, sibling fights. There's one just for men where I just talk as Casey and I talk as men to other men.

There's one for women. All kinds of stuff in there, okay? They're expensive. It's the most expensive thing that you'll see at this homeschool convention. We do this all over, and everybody gets offended, like, your stuff's so expensive. It doesn't cost you that much to produce your stuff. It doesn't. I'm a skeptical man. And at our booth every night, day, here's what's going to happen. Wives come up, moms come up, they're looking at our stuff like we need to change our home. We really need that. And dad's

back there like this. Oh no, we don't need any of that self-help stuff. And I get that. You know why? Because I'm the same exact way. But here's a special that we're doing, and I want you to note it. So when you go up to the table, when you talk to them, I'm honest about this. Our stuff is expensive for two reasons. One is self-respect. My stuff is really good, and I worked really hard at this and put a lot of time into it. I don't do anything cheap anymore because I want people to respect it. And the real reason I charge a lot for our stuff is this.

I want people to have an investment because in the early days, I sold my stuff really cheap, okay, cheaply, and nobody listened to it. They put it on a shelf. I don't want to sell a lot of stuff. I want a few families who say, we want to change, and we're going to listen and listen. By the way, let your kids listen to this. Look, if you get our CDs here, quick little tip. Get them out. Your strong-willed child will say this. Hey, parenting secrets to get you to behave, you don't get to listen.

And immediately your strong-willed child will download this to his iPod, and they'll get it. But here's your warning. They're going to look at you and say, Mom, you're not doing it the way calm guy said. And you're like, seriously, you're seven. Okay, but they'll get it. But I want you to use, I encourage people to use this as the curriculum for the summer.

Because if over the summer you could teach your child impulse control and self-control, and you could learn it too, it's more important than pretty much any other curriculum. So here's the special we're doing. Your handout's wrong. These things are typically $197 each. Never buy them off our website because they're not discounted there. And I don't apologize for $197. $197 each, if it's stopping meltdowns in your home, worth it.

Your handout says any two of these for $197, any five sets for $497. The special we're doing is this, and we're doing this especially if you get them early because we always run out, and at the last moment, everybody comes and does this, gets it. We're doing, instead of any five for $497, we're doing any five of these sets for $197 because we determined that on still $200.

For us, it's two trips to the therapist's office, okay? But I walk away with about 18 hours of practical strategies, very, very practical. There's a marriage mentoring program on there because most men don't want to go to marriage therapy because they feel teamed up on. So I do a private mentoring thing. That's 297 on your handout.

At the very bottom of your handout, it says, get everything we have. And we have never done this before, but we're from North Carolina. I live in Wilmington now. We're North Carolinians. Whatever. Thank you. Thank you for one person for your enthusiasm.

So, I'm kidding. So, we're doing everything we have. It's nine sets of CDs. It's workbooks. It's Q&A. Marriage mentoring for $397. So, you put three in there. It's still $397. It's workbooks. It's Q&A. Marriage mentoring for $3.97. So you put three in there. It's still $3.97.

It's money. Okay, it is. I get that. If you need help financially, I like assertive people to say, we're homeschoolers. We need some help with this. If you're assertive, we'll help you. But if you see Brett and Casey, they're over there.

Wave to them. They're going to be at our sessions throughout in our booth, and they will help you out with whatever you need. Is that it? Anything else? Anyway, I hope I see you around. Come and ask me questions. I'll answer your questions one by one. Thank you for homeschooling. Thank you for investing in your kids. Final thing, dads, remember, don't ask your wives what they got accomplished. Just remember to tell them every day when they come home, you're a good mom. Night will go by. Yes, thank you.

Thank you all very much. Thank you, thank you. Enjoy the rest of your night. God bless you.