Calm Parenting Podcast - Tired of Being Judged As A Parent During the Holidays?

Episode Date: November 28, 2022

Tired of Being Judged As A Parent During the Holidays? Are you tired of having to explain why your child acts the way he does or defend how you parent to your parents, in-laws or family members? Disagreements over how to raise your child can cause deep rifts, pain, and stress. Kirk gives concrete ways to navigate these situations. Early Access To Our Christmas Clearance Sale Begins NOW: You get everything we have ever recorded delivered directly to an app on your iPhone, iPad, Android, or computer. Listen anywhere, anytime. You get 35 hours of practical strategies and concrete examples, along with multiple PDF workbooks. Click here to learn more and take advantage of our Christmas Clearance Sale: https://celebratecalm.com/christmas-clearance/ Want to book a LIVE EVENT in 2023?! We are now booking IN PERSON and Zoom events for schools, PTAs, churches, synagogues, corporations, and agencies! Simply email Casey@CelebrateCalm with LIVE in the subject line and he'll share a one-page proposal within hours. It's EASY! Questions? Need help deciding on the best tools for your family? Email [e-mail] and Casey will help you personally! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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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. Being with your family around the holidays is awesome because they're always so supportive, right? Your parents are like, man, you're doing such a good job with that strong willed child and the in-laws never make any bad comments. It's okay. It's not like that, is it? Right? Are you tired of having to explain why your child does certain things or tired of defending the way you're parenting your child to your parents or in-laws or other family members?

It's hard. It's already hard enough being a parent of a strong-willed child. And now you have to do it in front of other people who are judging you. And there's this constant source of tension, right, for parents of kids like ours. And you either hear the whispers, right? You hear those whispers because your child is having a meltdown, right? And they're whispering like, well, if they would just discipline their child, they wouldn't have to do, right? And that can tear your family apart. And it's just not fun. And it's just not helpful. So in the spirit of the holidays,

I want to give you some tools to help your family actually be supportive of you. So that's what we're going to talk about on today's episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast. Welcome. This is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us at CelebrateCalm.com. If you need help, reach out to our child. Look, we are well aware of this. We were the ones in the family that had the first strong-willed child, and all the other kids were the good kids. So obviously, we were just awful parents and doing it wrong.

And so reach out to Casey because he understands you. Casey, C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com. Tell us about your child or kids. What are they struggling with? What are their ages? And we'll reply back as a family because this is our family mission. Quick mention, huge Christmas sale going on.

Take advantage of it. Why? Because it's practical tools. It's insight and practical tools that will actually change your family. I'm just gonna say this. We have a lot of people that are like, oh, I love your podcast.

I listen to the podcast, but we're not really, you know, we're making some changes, but I'm like, but you need all the tools, right? I get like 10, 12, 15 minutes on this, but in our materials, I can go into great depth and I can give you 10 different options for each situation. Whereas with here, I'm just giving you a couple, right? So just take advantage of it. Tell your spouse, this is what I want for Christmas. You don't have to worry. You don't have to go to the mall. You don't have to do anything. Follow this link. It's on sale, so you're going to save some money. And it's what I really want. I'll be overjoyed and happy. And if you even want to go even further, you could actually listen to the men's CD and start

doing what this guy says, and then it'll work a lot better. Anyway, so here are a few tips to use with your extended family. One, I want you to be confident. I want you to be confident in telling family members, look, we want you to be involved. We want our son, our daughter, to have close relationships. We want them to have fondness. Like, well, look, I'm just going to tell you what I told my dad. Cause he would come in career military guy. Like I will show you how to discipline. I was like, dad, you're his grandpa, right? His other grandpa passed away. He only has one. When you are gone, I want him to have fond memories of you to remember that you weren't the one who came in and discipline and corrected him, that he had a grandpa who took him out places and spoiled him a little bit and bought him donuts because we won't

because they'll make the rest of the day awful, but you can go do it, right? I want you to have that. I want you to have that close relationship. So I told my dad, let me handle the discipline and the tough stuff. I want you to enjoy him. I want you to spoil him as grandparents should, but leave the discipline to me, right? Now, grandparents jump in because they love you and love their grandchild and they want to help. So give them specific things they can do in order to help. So here are a few. Be curious. Mom, dad, look, I acknowledge my son, your grandchild, he's challenging, difficult. I get it. But here's when he's at his best and here's what he really needs. When you come and visit, will you be curious about what your grandson is interested in?

Will you start affirming all the positive things that you see in him? Because you know why? Because he is an amazing kid. He's just not living up to your expectations all the time. And he may not get the best grades, but he's a really smart, curious kid. I want you to be a grounding influence for him. Find ways for your family members to connect with your child in ways that make your child shine. If your child loves building things and Grandpa or Uncle Joe are awesome at building things, have them work on a project together.

Because now you've got Grandpa or Uncle Joe with your son. He's like, man, and they can look and see, man, you're really good at seeing in three dimensions. Man, how did you fix that thing? How did you see that? That is awesome. And you put them in a position where your family members can see, man, yeah, I know he struggles sometimes at the dinner table and maybe he struggles in school, whatever it is, but man, when my grandson is doing X, man, that kid is awesome. Come up with a special project they can work on together. You know why that's important? Because the holidays are filled with unstructured time,

and that's really hard for our kids. But if there's a project that they're working on together, that fills in time with some structure, and it plays to your child's strengths. Here's another one. When your family members inevitably ask about school or grades, you can say, look here's where Ethan is shining this year. He's got a great critical thinking skills. This kid asks the best questions. He's good at debating. You know why? Because he's a really good thinker. You know what else he is? Persuasive. You know how many jobs you have in life where you need to be curious and push the boundaries and ask questions and be a good analytical thinker and persuasive. Lots of them. You know what? My son has so much energy.

You know what he did with that energy? He built this really cool thing from scratch. You know what else I love about my son? Huge heart. You know what? The older, the senior citizens, the old neighbors down the street were struggling with something, he went down and he volunteered to help them. He's volunteering at an animal shelter. He started his own little business. He can build a robot from scratch. He takes apart things. Doesn't always put together the right way but he takes things apart, right? And he's always looking at things and he's finding out how things work. He's tinkering with things. That's the kind of curious kid that I really wanted to raise. And I'm thankful

that I got a curious kid because that's, remember, that's my goal. My goal isn't to have a child who gets all A's and B's or straight A's. It's to have a curious child who loves to learn. But perspective, see, that's giving perspective of everything's not just about school and grades. It's about thinking process. You know what? It's that thing of like, yeah, you know what? Sometimes he blurts out in class, but you know what I realize? The reason my son blurts out in class is not because he's just disrespectful. It's because he has so many ideas running through his brain and he's afraid he's going to forget them so he blurts out, I know it's not right to do, but underneath of that is

a curious kid who wants to share his ideas. If I can shape that, mom and dad, grandparents, help me shape these qualities and funnel them into something positive. Now, you could ask your family, find a couple of these podcasts, short ones, right? Or if you've got the Calm Parenting Package or Get Everything Package, let them listen to a couple audio programs.

It's easy. You put the app right on their phone and share it with them and say, would you, mom, dad, here's what would really help me. We've found that this approach really works best with our son, and it works best for us. It would mean a lot to us if we could all be aligned in working together.

And you can affirm, I know it looks different than the way you did it, and I do respect that. I'm asking you to work with us on this because we all have the same goals. That's a nice way to ask. And then the one mom who emailed in said, would you talk to my parents on a phone consultation? I'm like, absolutely, I will. And look, if I talk to any of your parents, here's what I'm going to do first. I'm going to affirm that what they did worked for them back in the day.

I'm going to also affirm the reservations. You know, I think she's letting them get away with things. I'm like, I totally get why you would think that. Here's some insight into this child that maybe will help you out. And then I'll teach them how kids like yours operate best and then give them a game plan, right? Because people want a game plan. Now, look, there are some of your family members who are just critical people who don't want to help

and they don't feel good about themselves and they simply want to judge you. You probably can't help those people. You probably can't right now, right? You can love them. You can feel mercy toward them because it would be awful to be stuck in a brain that's always finding fault with other people, right?

That wouldn't be so hot. But you can just kind of not worry about them so much. But the ones who do care and just disagree with you, teach them. Gently teach them. But you can firmly teach them, too, and say, uh-uh, it's just not going to work. Look, we always make that joke at live events. Like, how many of you have friends and parents who judge you and are like, well, you know what, if you were firm and consistent with your consequences,

and you're like, really? I never thought about that. I never thought about actually being firm and consistent, but you've done that, right? And so you tell your friend, look, we did the traditional approach. It backfires on him. It doesn't work, but what we're finding is this works. And I encourage you to have that discussion. Don't let this go over the holidays. Pull them together and say, affirm them first of like, I know you care about me and you care about your grandkids and you want the best.

We all want the same thing. And here's what I'm asking. And this is what I often do with dads. Look, what we're doing, what you're doing isn't working. For the next four weeks, could we try doing X and see how that works? Grandma and grandpa, uncles, for the next four weeks, will you try doing it a different way with our son? And let's see how he responds to it because he wants to be affirmed like all people do. So I encourage you to do that. If we can help you, if we can

encourage you in any way, please let us know. Take advantage of the do that. If we can help you, if we can encourage you in any way, please let us know. Take advantage of the Christmas sale. If you need help, reach out to Casey at CelebrateCalm.com and we will help you out. All right. Love you all. Bye-bye.