Calm Parenting Podcast - This May Save Your Relationship

Episode Date: June 9, 2020

We have SLASHED prices on the Calm Parenting Package this week. You Get ALL of our Parenting Programs for $197. Prices return to $475 next week, so order now and change your home. Digital downloads are included with all orders: Listen directly on your iPhone, Android, or Tablet. You can even share the programs with family members who don't understand you or your kids. Once you purchase, you have access FOREVER, even with new devices. CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE. 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

So you know we are very purposeful about how we manage our emotions and take care of our bodies because we only have one body and one skin. That's why we love OneSkin. Their products make it easy to keep your skin healthy while looking and feeling your best. We use the face topical supplement and love that there's no complicated routine, no multiple step protocols, just simple scientifically validated solutions. The secret is OneSkin'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, One Skin 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 KIRK. After you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them, so please support our podcast and tell them we sent you. Hey moms and dads, you know that our goal is to raise curious kids who love to learn, and IXL makes that so much easier. IXL is an online learning program that enriches your homeschool curriculum from K to 12.

IXL encourages students to be curious and empowers them to choose how to learn. No matter your child's learning style or knowledge level, IXL has video tutorials and learning games to guide your child in the way your kids learn best while meeting them at their level. On IXL, kids can explore any topic in any grade level. They're not forced into a single learning path. Kids love IXL's positive feedback, and parents love knowing specific skills that need work. Make an impact on your child's learning. Get IXL now.

Calm Parenting Podcast listeners get an exclusive 20% off an IXL membership when you sign up today at ixl.com slash kirk. Visit ixl.com slash kirk to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. So what do you do with a strong-willed child who makes everything difficult, who won't listen to you, who melts down? It's frustrating, but we're going to show you what to do today on the Calm Parenting Podcast. This is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us at CelebrateCalm.com. You can email us anytime. You're going to talk to our son Casey, C-A-S-E-Y, at CelebrateCalm.com. He'll help you with anything you need, and

he gets you because he was the strong-willed child. So this is going to be a good podcast, a really good one, extremely important one, I think, insight into the strong-willed kids. And I know it's going to be good because I have wrestled with this. I have gone for hours and hours of walks wrestling over how to frame this, how to get this right. I've recorded already four different times on four different days. So it's irritating me, but that's when I know it's going to be good and it's going to help you. So let's set the scene. We went to the beach last weekend, set up our little spread as a family, and we noticed a young family coming up. Mom, grandma, aunts and uncles, and two little kids.

There's a cute little blonde girl. We learned that her name is Emma. Well, everybody loves Emma because she sits and she plays and she sings happy songs. And then there's her slightly older, dark-haired sister who's intense, purposeful. You can see it on her face, right? And this is not stereotyping. It's this. We had our own strong-willed child, and we had 1,500 of these kids come into our home

over the course of a decade. I'm pretty good at spotting that strong-willed child. She had it written all over her. So her name's Sophie. We found that out because she got her name used a lot, basically from parents and grandparents yelling at her. So we heard this word Sophie, the name Sophie, a lot. So picture the scene. Sophie is twirling a plastic shovel. Well, of course she is, because what everybody knows, and the mom made sure to tell her,

Sophie, you don't twirl a shovel. It's used for digging. And my immediate thought is the strong-willed child will never, ever do things the way you want them done. It's a fundamental precept, and I believe it's true. And it's going to irritate you. They're not going to do things the way that you want them done. And I'm not saying it's right, but it's how it is because the more compliant children will use the shovel to dig sand

and make a hole, and maybe they're going to use the little things and make little castles, and it's awesome. We love those kids. We love the little blonde girl, Emma, because that's what she does, but not Sophie, because you know what she finds out? She wants to do like the little baton swirl, but she doesn't have a baton, so she picks up a plastic shovel. Little point here. It's actually a big point. I'm not saying it's right of her to do it, but it's how they're made. And we're going to have to come to grips with that with your child and actually encourage that and use that to your advantage.

Because watch how this scene, watch, it can unfold one of two ways. Here's a typical way. Sophie, Sophie, put down the shovel. And we're going to see what happens in a minute with that. But why couldn't we, why can't we as grown adults calm ourselves down enough, stop reacting to everything, stop having so many control issues? Why can't we take a step back and look at that daughter and say, from the time she has been born, she's always done things differently

because that mom could have said, Sophie, that's really cool. Why don't you show us how to twirl a baton, but you'd use a shovel because that's harder to do because the weight distribution is harder. See strong little kids like the challenge. Who wants to twirl a baton when you can twirl a shovel? So Sophie, step back, go like 15 steps over there and then show us. We'd love to see. And then they can say, man, that's really hard to do, but you keep doing it because you're so persistent. Now inside you have every right to think, why is she so difficult? She's not just persistent, she's obstinate. Depends how you look at her. And then while she's twirling her little shovel, now you're affirming her and you're challenging her to do it. And if you challenge

these kids to do something different that they're not necessarily supposed to do. They love it. But here's what happened. Sophie, put the shovel down. Put the shovel down. Now, Sophie doesn't put it down right away. She hesitates. And I could see in her brain, she's calculating in her brain. She's like, I really like doing this. There's a challenge to it. There's probably also a sensory need that it feels really good to twist and twirl and try to control this thing that is kind of lopsided in weight. And you can see her calculating. Should she just put down the shovel because her mom asked her to? Absolutely.

Will your strong-willed child do that? Probably not. And look, you can spend the rest of your life fighting this and trying to have the ideal that you want, and I have no problem with that, but just realize you will probably pick and choose hundreds and hundreds of power struggles over things that don't need to be power struggles, because if you look inside, there's no blame or guilt. It's just recognizing, I have so many control issues, and I want things done a certain way, right? And it's because you care about your kids and you want her to listen to the teachers and other people in

life. But I'm asking you to relax a little bit because this little girl's calculating in her brain and you're going to see it with your kids all the time. There's always a hesitation and they're trying to figure out, well, is it worth it to play with a shovel and get in trouble? And usually it is, right? And so I know your brain may not work that way because you're like, well, when someone tells you to do it, you should just do it. Well, that's the way you're made. And that's served you well in life. Unless you become too much of a people pleaser, then you become resentful. True. Because that's what little cute little Emma's, that's what her path is because she's the good child who always does whatever

everybody else says and everybody loves her. And she learns that if I'm just really good for people, they'll like me. Well, where that comes, where that she's going to struggles later in life. Sometimes girls like that grow up and marry a controlling man. And they find that man because they learn, well, if I just am kind of submissive to him in a way that because they learn well if I just am kind of submissive to him in a way that is not healthy and I just you know I manage his emotions and I and I do everything the way everybody wants me to do then everybody will like me and then she becomes begins to think like many of you have well after all I do for you and yet you don't respect me you don't do

anything for me because you expected because you were so good Everybody would reciprocate and they don't and little Emma is probably going to experience that one day Little Emma may get into the workforce and realize it's kind of a dog-eat-dog world out of there and her just following directions all the time may not lead to promotions. But Sophie, Sophie, when she gets into the corporate world or whatever she does, probably not, she could probably own her own business after she gets fired a few times, she's going to be due just fine because she's going to stand up to any kind of controlling man and say, I'm not going to marry you trying to control me. That's not how it works. I'm an equal partner here and you're going to treat me with respect. And that's a really healthy thing. And she's going to go into the workforce

and she's going to figure her own way because she doesn't need to follow the rules all the time. Right now, again, I'm projecting into the future a little bit because it's kind of fun to see strong will kids struggle in childhood, but usually in adult world, they're awesome. And you've said that before. If we could just get her or him to adulthood, he's going to do just fine. So she's calculating. She doesn't put down the shovel. Mom's tone gets harsher, understandably. Right? Look, I can't say when Casey was little, I did the same exact thing. Sophie put the shovel down now. So Sophie does so. Well, in doing so, she loses her grip. And guess what happens?

It hits mom on the head. This is awesome when you're not the family and you're just watching. So mom reacts furiously. She was upset, understandably. So Sophie starts running off. And we knew her name after this because both mom and grandma yelled at her, Sophie, come back, come back. And Casey and I looked at each other. We looked at each other like she's not coming back. She keeps walking away. Why? Because she's embarrassed and she knew she did something wrong and she needs space to calm down.

It appears that she's being disobedient because she's not listening to her mother and grandmother. But what you have to realize is as soon as that shovel fell, boom. I know I'm going to get blamed because my mom and grandma think that I did it on purpose. And we misjudge these kids' motives all the time. And I will tell you, if you fall into that trap, you are going to have a world of pain ahead of you because that will cause an extreme amount of anger in your kids to think that their motives are judged all the time. Sophie didn't mean to hit her mom on the head. And the logical argument you will give is, well, if she just would have listened to her mother in the first place, it wouldn't have happened. And I get that. I agree with that. But it's just not how it works with the strong willed kids. And why don't we ever set them

up for success and say, Sophie, you know love you love a challenge you're trying to treat your shovel like a baton why don't you go stand over there and we'll watch and we'll actually show you how to do this and we'll firm you you could have changed the whole situation with one little change and I know some of you're gonna be like err I shouldn't have to change and any men that are listening usually dads are like well she just needs listen it's my way or the highway well that's a great philosophy if you don't want to change. And any men that are listening, usually dads are like, well, she just needs to listen. It's my way or the highway. Well, that's a great philosophy if you don't want to have a relationship with your child and if you want them to grow up and be really angry at you and you angry at them. I just think that's how it works, right? And so this daughter

is walking away because she needs time to calm down and she's embarrassed and you can see it and you'd see her look back she didn't go too far she knew what the limits were she walked just far enough away that she couldn't hear her parents and grandparents annoying voice but just enough away so she could dig in the dirt so she could look at the water and she could touch the water. And then she came back on her own. Now, while Sophie's away, little Emma continues to sing and enchant mom and grandma under the umbrella. And you can see the charming good child and that kind of brooding, challenging child dynamic at play. And it's been at play since the beginning of time. From the time of Adam, from the time of the story of Cain and Abel, from this time all through, you look at ancient Roman literature, Greek literature,

back to the Mesopotamians, all ancient literature tells this story. And it's still playing out in our day. So, Sophie comes walking back with her aunt and uncle. You can tell that it's her aunt and uncle because they're happy and carefree. I'm kidding. Kinda. But it's true. It's true.

Aunt and uncle, they don't have kids yet. So they're like playing in the waves, walking around, doing whatever they want. And you know what thought hit me when we were sitting there is kids are really inconvenient. They are. This takes work because that mom and grandma with little Emma sitting there is awesome. But Sophie doesn't sit. She's always moving and you're trying to come on vacation and you want to just sit, but you're going to have to get up and walk with these kids. By the way, that is a huge insight. I know it sounds very simple, but from the time all through our family, we have kids on the spectrum, and one of my nieces, I just learned with her,

if you would just walk with her, next to her, let her explore a little bit, she would open up to you, and we would have the best talks. And all the kids, there's 1,500 kids that came to the camp. If I would just simply go walk with them and be active with them, it was helpful. But we want them to be like us and we want them to just sit still and it doesn't work. And I want you to get to know your kids and how their brains work and stop imposing everything of yours because who says that you're right all the time? Just because you are the authority figure doesn't mean that you're right all the time. And sometimes, and I get it,

this is really hard stuff, but it will change you if you embrace it and you learn about your child that they're not like you and they're different from you and they will open up new worlds to you and they will root out all of your immaturity and your control issues and your anxiety and they're a gift to you but you have to embrace it and so watch what happens. Sophie comes walking back up with her aunt and uncle and what do the mom and grandma have to say? Sophie, would you like to tell your aunt and uncle what you just did? Nothing like a good public shaming to harden your child's heart, right? And I get that because in case he was little, we do the same thing, right? We feel compelled for some reason, right?

To do this, to say like, would you like to tell, right? And what do you think is going to happen to Sophie? Do you think she's like, well, my mom told me to put down the shovel, but I didn't want to because it was really interesting and I was treating it like a baton. And so I kept doing it a little bit. And then she told me and she was a little bit gruff. So I did it, but then it slipped out of my hands and it hit my mom in the head. And that's why I'm such a bad child.

And as you can see, my little sister's sitting there and everybody loves her, but I'm the difficult one. And I can tell when I walk away from you, you talk about me and you're concerned about me and everybody's kind of against me because that's how they feel by the way. Right. And everybody's against me. So I'm just a bad kid. So if you want, I can tell you all the other bad things that I did as well. Like what, right? Like that's not going to help. Right. Why do we feel compelled to do that? And while I was walking this morning thinking about this, I had this little image. And for those of you who are religious, you might recognize it in the story of the prodigal son. And I pictured, what if mom

in this situation had done this? Story of the prodigal son, the prodigal, the bad kid goes away, does all this bad stuff, comes back home. And while he's a long way off, his father runs out to him and throws his arms around him. What if this mom, and I'm not condemning the mom, this is hard stuff. It's hard, hard stuff, but it's, but let me make this clear. It's a lot easier than having continual power struggles and a bad relationship and thinking that your child's awful and them not liking you. It's a whole lot easier than that, right? Look, to be honest, it's not that hard. Why? I control myself and look how different this could be. Instead, I could have proactively just said, huh, my daughter likes spinning that. Huh, that's interesting. I look down the beach and I see none of the other children are spinning a shovel in

their hands. Well, my daughter's always been different. So how can I use that to my advantage? Maybe she thinks it's a baton and she likes the challenge. Sophie, go stand over there and then you can put on a show and show us how good you are at twirling because one day maybe you'll be whatever it is, right? You could be in cheer and you can do this and you can do all kinds of awesome things and we'd love to see that. When her daughter's walking back to her, she can realize instead of, well, I just need to ream her. I need to let her know that what she did is wrong. I could have stepped out of all of that ick in my own heart and said, my daughter's coming back to me. That mom could have gotten up out of her chair and met Sophie halfway in between and gotten down on her knees and said, Sophie, you know what I'm proud of you

for? You walked away and you calmed yourself down and you came back to me. And that shows me that you're growing up. And then you give little Sophie a hug and go for a walk with her. Now you just change that entire situation. But instead it's, hey, you want to tell your aunt and uncle what you just did? It doesn't work, right? And so this is why I've got three points here, three or four points here of things that I would do is we can't misjudge the motives. You've got to get to know your kids, right, and what they're like. We've got this program. It's called Enjoy Your Strong-Willed Child, How to Stop the Power of Struggles.

Look, I'll be honest. This is what I was thinking when I was going for my walk this program. It's called Enjoy Your Strong Willed Child, How to Stop the Power Struggles. Look, I'll be honest. This is what I was thinking when I was going for my walk this morning. That program alone is worth 200 bucks. It is because it's going to give you insight into your kids that you don't have so that you can understand them so you can stop the power struggles and actually enjoy them. That alone, the insight in the one program is worth that because you've spent money on therapists and behavior therapy where they're like, well, you just need to be tough and have boundaries and set your consequences and be firm. You've already done all of that. It doesn't work with these kids. You have to understand what they're like.

And so I just encourage you, if you have our CD programs, listen to them repeatedly. And the reason we want you to listen to them is because we show you insight into your kids, but we show you how to discipline, how to motivate, how to stop the meltdowns and the power struggles. There's a CD series for just moms on having self-respect, on dads, how to deescalate, right? There's a CD program for kids to listen to from Casey, right? He teaches, my son teaches your kids, because they listen to another kid, how to calm their own emotions. And they feel very understood. And there's some stuff on motivating and screen time and sibling fights. All of that we put together in the Calm Parenting Package.

If you go to CelebrateCalm.com, you'll find it there. And it's not even 200 bucks. And you get like 10 programs, 25, 30 hours worth of instruction and insights that you can use this summer do it this summer you have time look there's no pressure from school work over the summer so you have time to work on the deeper things and understand your kids if you need help financially with it email Casey right just email Casey C-A-S-E-Y celebrate calm and say look here here are the kids' ages. Here's what we're struggling with.

What would you recommend? Here's our budget. We will help you, but I want you to work on this. Number one, we have to stop misjudging their motives, right? Because they will resist you. They will become very angry and they'll start to internalize, I'm the bad kid. I'm the dumb kid. We tend to right to yell at her daughter and say, what you did was wrong, blah, blah? Of course she did.

But it tends to escalate things. But if she had gotten up and met her daughter halfway and said, you know what? You know what's really cool? Instead of escalating things, instead of throwing things, instead of getting upset and yelling at me, you walked away because you know that walking away and having a little bit of alone time is a really good and seriously really mature calming strategy. How many of us need to do that? How many of the husbands out there need to learn how to walk away for a few minutes and then come back when you're calm? And that's exactly what Sophie did. She, you know what, I'm just, she did the adult thing in that situation. She did. She calmed herself down.

And I guarantee you, if mom had met her and said, I'm proud of you for that, Sophie would have said, Mom, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't put the shovel down. Is your head okay? Right? She would have because contrition, right, contrition comes when we lead our kids to contrition. It's much better than a forced apology. I want an apology right now. Fine, sorry. That's all you're going to get, right?

Because they could have bonded. And this is third point. This is really important. We tend to notice what they do wrong rather than affirming what they did well, right? And that's when you get to bond with your kids and say, you know what? I know that you know you were wrong and you shouldn't have done that. But what I like is you walked away, calmed yourself down. Look, can you help me with something? Because you're really strong. And you know what was interesting? This girl never stopped moving. Never. We watched Sophie never we watched sophie walk and and the tight the it was low tide so there's a long uh there's a um probably 40 40 yards of beach between their um blanket and the water she carried these uh pails down to the water filled them up brought them up dumped them in this hole she had made for her

sister and she did that again and again and again and again. She is relentless, right? And she just kept doing it while everybody else was sitting. She never stopped moving. So why? Look, we miss it. Why not affirm that? Sophie, you're so strong. You're so persistent. You're so helpful, refilling, carrying all these pails of water like that. Thank you for that. See, why not use that? See, because all that happened in this situation is we love little Emma because she just sits still and sings and she's happy. But that's not who your kids are sometimes. They're moving, doing stuff, that sensory exercise. They want to feel things. They want to pick things up. You could tell she loved. Why else would a kid carry those heavy pails back and forth again and again in the heat? Because it felt good when she's carrying things. And so if you can step back and observe your kids, see, when Sophie gets upset for now, I want to give her physical things to do,

to carry things, to dig things, right? It's extremely helpful. And when you can do that with your kids, you will find they listen to you more because they don't feel like the bad kid. And I want to say that I'm going to say this statement a couple of times. I'm going to put it in the newsletter. So if you don't get our newsletter, sign up at CelebrateCalm.com or email Casey. He'll sign you up because then you can get kind of, I'm going to do like some written notes, uh, from this podcast and, um, you get it in the newsletter and it's all free. So sign up for it. Um, and again, reach out to Casey if you need help with anything, but this is really important. We get so focused on trying to change their behavior. We get so annoyed that they're so challenging. Moms, dads, I get that. They're annoying. They're difficult. They're challenging. I get it. I get it. I get it.

We knew 1,501 of them, one of them being our son. And that's Casey, the one that you're going to talk to if you reach out to us. We get so focused on trying to change their behavior. We get so annoyed that they're so different, so challenging, that we forget to see they're just kids who want to be liked, who want to be affirmed, who want to be accepted as they are, just like you, just like me, just like every other person on this planet. I'm going to read it again. It's internalized, maybe in a different way. Stop trying to control their behavior all the time. Stop getting so annoyed because they're so different.

Use that to see what's inside of you. What is inside of you? What are those triggers that get pushed? And change yourself, control yourself so you can enjoy them. Because I promise you, if you don't learn to like and affirm and accept these kids as they are, even if they're difficult and challenging, I promise you'll just have power struggles their entire lives. And the hard part is when they get to be teenagers, there's rages and they get angry and they'll shut down and you can't do anything about it. And we don't want these kids seeking other kids who've been rejected.

Why do you think kids who are like this end up among the so-called bad group of kids? It's because they're seeking acceptance. And so what do they inherently know? All these other kids who have been rejected by society, guess what? They'll accept me because finally someone understands me. Try ripping your child apart from that group. Not going to happen, right? Because I found a group of kids who understands me.

And so I want you to do that from a young age. If you have teenagers, it's not too late. We can show you how to do that. Reach out to Casey. We have the No BS program. It's a great one for your teenagers who are angry, who feel different. But the Calm Parenting Package we have on sale, we've slashed the prices like 60%. We understand that people are struggling right now. A lot of you are out of work or had your income reduced. Reach out to us. We are here to help. We want you to understand your strong-willed kids. And final word is I want you to enjoy. I want you to learn to enjoy your strong-willed child because once you start to enjoy them, you will turn all of these power struggles, most of them, you will turn them into opportunities to bond with you.

And it's a beautiful, beautiful, really cool thing. And you can do this. You just need some tools to do that. And that's why we're here. Hey, thank you for listening. Thank you for being a parent. It's hard work. But look, if you start doing it this way,

it's so much easier than fighting all the time. Love you all. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye.