Calm Parenting Podcast - Want Responsible, Respectful Kids? Do The Step Back.

Episode Date: January 21, 2019

Yeah, I know we all want the same thing: kids who are responsible, respectful and become good citizens. I’m going to share a very powerful secret that will get your kids to actually step up and be responsible for themselves. It will eliminate so many of the power struggles. This is inspiring! Want to stop yelling and micromanaging so your kids will step up, like Kirk talked about? Learn how here: http://www.celebratecalm.com/calm30-free/ Want Kirk to speak at your school or church in 2019? Get 20% OFF for your organization if you email [e-mail] with the subject line CALM2019. Have questions? Email [e-mail]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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-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 k Kirk to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. 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 One Skin's proprietary OS1 peptide. It's the first ingredient proven to switch off the aging cells that cause lines, wrinkles, and thinning skin. OneSkin is the world's first skin longevity company. By focusing on the cellular aspects of aging, OneSkin keeps your skin looking and acting younger for longer. Get started today with 15% off using code Kirk at OneSkin.co. That's 15% off at OneSkin.co with code K-I-R-K. After you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. So please support our podcast and tell them we sent you. Hey everyone, this is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm, and I've got an awesome message for you today. It's called Step Back So Your Kids Can Step Up. And you're going to resist

this, and you're going to hate it. And I love that, because I guarantee you, once you master this, it will so liberate you and free your kids to be responsible. Because look, we're all looking for the same thing, right? We want to raise kids who are responsible, who are respectful, who grow up to be good citizens, who can take care of themselves, who can do things the right way, who are independent. We all want that, right? And so here's what happens though. We tend to get on them so much and suffocate them and manage, micromanage their lives that we make them incapable of it. So this is what I'm going to be teaching. I'm going to be teaching a lot on this on this upcoming trip.

Just so you know, we're going to, Casey and I head out for three weeks of live workshops. We're going to be in Northern Virginia for four days, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Arcola, Illinois. Look, we go to some of these small towns. So there's no excuse. If you want us to come to your town, you've got to reach out to us. Email my son. It's Casey, C-A-S-E-Y, at CelebrateCalm.com. He'll help you do this because our live workshops are amazing.

And it's hard to say because it sounds kind of like, oh, you say your stuff is amazing. Look, I'm 52. I'll tell you every one of my flaws. I can tell you all the things I don't do well. You want me to fix something around the house? I stink at that. I'm not good at tons of things. And if you ever meet me in person, just ask me.

I'll tell you all my flaws. But our live workshops kick butt and they change lives and they're phenomenal. And we also, it's great because we get through to men. When men come out to the live events and they get to hear a man talking with his son, there's something that happens. Plus our teacher training is phenomenal because most teacher training stinks. It's boring. It's filled with theory by someone who's never been in a classroom before. So anyway, if you want to set up a live workshop, email or call my son, 888-506-1871. It's phenomenal. After our COLA, we go to Balmy, Rochester, Minnesota. By the way, we go to balmy Rochester, Minnesota.

By the way, we've got a date open for Minnesota. If you're in Minnesota and you want to set something up kind of quickly, it'll work. We'll make it work and we'll turn people out. Just email Casey. After that, we're off to Texas and Oklahoma. And we do have one date left, Wednesday, February 6th. We can either go, we go Austin, Texas. We go to Houston. We could go to San Antonio.

We could go to Dallas. We go to Tulsa, Oklahoma. I don't care. I'd rather be working and meeting and helping people than sitting in a hotel room. So take some action and set something up. So that's an awesome three-week trip. And then we end up in Atlanta, Georgia and Nashville something up. So that's an awesome three-week trip. And then we end up in Atlanta, Georgia and Nashville, Tennessee. I don't know when I'm going to be home. Now I'm getting anxious

because we're gone so long. Anyway, we love being out there and hope to see you there. So here's why I'm focusing on this today. I woke up to this awesome email and I'm going to share the email, the story with you. And I'm just going to change the name of the lady because I want to honor her for what she's doing, how hard this is. But I don't want to reveal her identity. Anyway, I'm going to call her Nicole. So here's the email. She said, I tried something new today. Oh, here's backdrop. This is a mom who is homeschooling six kids. I know what you're thinking.

Homeschoolers are wacky and weird anyway. I get it. We homeschooled Casey for a while. Why? Because he kept getting kicked out of different schools. So we didn't really have a choice. And it's really hard work, but it's awesome. And we speak at homeschool conventions.

I love my homeschool families. Some of them, yeah, they're a little bit weird. But you know what? Some of you that send your kids to regular public schools, you're really weird too because I've met you. So chill. Anyway, this lady's homeschooling six kids. She's got to be mom, teacher, disciplinarian, principal, everything. And I bet her husband's so happy every day to go to work.

Anyway, sorry about that, but it's probably true. Anyway, so she said, look, I tried something new today. I am by nature, very idealistic. That's me. It's really hard for me to let go of my ideals at times and what I really want to happen. Can you identify with that? When I wake up in the morning, I've got a plan for the day. Like I actually, like it's sitting in front of me. I have an old school planner. Like it's like paper. Some of you don't even know what that is because everything's on your phone. My day is planned out. Like I've got a plan and it really irritates me at times when my plan gets messed up. Guess who messes up plans? Human beings because they don't always do things the way you want.

And you decided with a spouse or someone else to populate the earth with other little human beings. Guess what? They're going to mess up your agenda and they're going to mess up things because that's life. And we've got to grow up and deal with that. So she said, here's what happened. I woke up late after a rough night of sleep and a cold that hit me last night. Look, this stuff is all building up. You know, when you have a cold and you're not feeling well, it really throws you off. And I know from personal experience, when I'm not feeling well, I get very, very particular. I want things to be just so. And I think it's because my body's not feeling well, and it feels like I don't have control of my own body.

So I want to control other things and people. So just get in this story with this lady. So I'm already running late before I'm out of bed. But she decided instead of reacting out of her anxiety from being behind, she decided to take care of herself. This is a completely separate podcast. This would be four hours of information. But you have to be ruthless about taking care of yourself. The greatest gift you

give your family is not what you do for them, it is what you do for yourself because when you take care of yourself and your own anxiety, your own control issues, then you can be the calm, confident leader in the home. This is hard for many of you, really hard. So she said, I drank my coffee. I ate my breakfast. I did some food prep for lunch and dinner. Don't make fun of her. She's got six kids. You want to do food prep for lunch, dinner for six kids? I don't. Then she said, I did some work on my 30 days to calm program. That's our thing, right? So if you don't have the 30 Days to Calm program, you need to go through it. It's awesome because we deal with all of your triggers, your anxiety, what's causing it. We get to the root of it.

I promise it will so change your life. Even if it has nothing to do with the kids, it will change you inside so you can actually enjoy life and enjoy other people. She did a little bit of devotional work. She wrote her gratitude list. Awesome, mom. She journaled. I'm not a good journaler, so I don't really journal. But it's really good for you if you do.

And then she decided I was going to lead in peace today and not out of anxiety for being behind, which is my normal MO. So it's 10 a.m. We haven't even started our homeschool work. I know from homeschooling families, that'll irritate you because all the other kids in the world have started at eight o'clock or 830 and they've got such good structure in regular schools and you're homeschooling. There's no bell that goes off. There's no principal over the loudspeaker. So if it's 10 o'clock, I'm freaking out because we're like already two hours behind. So she said, normally I'm pushing and I'm rushing to get done by noon. But by the way, I don't need to check out on the story if you're not a homeschooling family, because this has everything to do with every other thing in your life and everything that you're trying to get your kids to do, whether it's doing homework,

whether it's doing, just doing their chores, anything. So she's normally, I'm pushing, I'm rushing to get things done by noon because that's my ideal. And I get that. So my six kids know this about me and they fight me all the way. And that's such good insight because your kids know all of your flaws. They know that you have these rigid things about you and they will fight you. And I don't blame them because it's their immature way of saying, we're not here to kind of fit within your schedule, your rigid, arbitrary schedule. And when you try to do that to us, you're just honest and you're never happy and there's no joy in our home. And it's all pushing, pushing.

So they're going to resist. So today, the younger ones played pizza delivery while I took care of myself. Sorry about that ding. That was my son texting me. My irritating, strong-willed child, who's an awesome 25-year-old. Sorry about that. Then I began reading to the older kids after I set out work for the younger kids and let them know it was there. This is cool they came to me to ask me if we could do their reading program for dyslexia this never happens and i will tell you just think of this poor mom she's got kids with dyslexia too right so this is hard and this is so cool because i hear it all the time when And here's the principle. When we step back as adults, it gives our kids space to step up and be responsible. I know you're going to resist this. You're going to be, but what about, but what

about, but if I'm not on my kids all the time, my kids have ADHD. And if I'm not on them, I want you to try this, but you can't just do one time. You've got to make this a way of life, and you've got to start doing this for your kids because it gives them room. Quick side note. I remember a couple years ago, I was talking to this mom, and she told me she had broken her arm. I've heard this from moms all the time. They get sick.

They have something going on with them, and they can't do their normal stuff. They can't fix lunch. They can't do everything for their kids. And you know what happens? When they're on the sofa, when they're sitting down, what happens is the kids step up. The kids make their own lunch. The kids do it.

Now, here's the hard part. Do they do it the way you would do it? Probably not. There's probably going to be a little bit of jelly hanging off the kitchen counter, falling on the floor. There's going to be breadcrumbs that they don't clean up perfectly because they're kids, but they'll do it. And I used to joke at our live events. I may bring this one back. It was a good joke, but I used to joke with moms and say, just fake like you're sick. And I would look, I'm going to challenge all of you moms someday this week, just fake like you're

sick and you can't do stuff and lay on the sofa. You never do that. Look, your husbands do that stuff all the time. If we get a little sniffle, it's like, Oh, I think I have the flu. I can't do anything because we're big babies. You can handle anything. You can pop out babies and do all your stuff while you're having a baby, right? You're tough moms. But I don't want you to be so tough all the time. I don't want you to always be that thing of like, well, I've got it. I can handle everything.

If I ask for help as a mom, that means I'm weak. No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't. You need to ask for help sometimes. Let other people do things for you. You don't have to be like your martyr mother who did everything for everybody else and then was miserable in life and took that out on our kids. So break that pattern. Does that make sense?

It's pretty cool when you do it. Some of you, you're really going to, because you're like, do you have such control issues? You're like, no, I need to do it like this and my kids need to learn. This is the way you do it. And they my kids need to learn. This is the way you do it. And they're just going to fight you every time. And that's your issue. Quickest way to change your child's behavior is first control your own. So her kids actually come to her. That's what I want. That's what I want. And that's what you want. Instead of going to them and micromanaging and standing over them all the time at homework time, whatever time it is, I want your kids to come to you, but they won't if you're always over them.

So continue with the story. I didn't get done by lunch. In fact, lunch was about 30 minutes later than normal. Can you hear it in this, mom? How many of you are like that? She's like, Oh, lunch is usually right at noon. It wasn't until 1230 for the rest of the world. It's like, so what's the big deal. But for me, I'm the same way. I like to be done with my workouts in the morning. I like to be the gym by 10 o'clock. If I'm there after 10 o'clock, it like messes with

me a little bit. And it's just all arbitrary because I don't have to be there by then. So I had to do some dishes and more dinner prep. And after that, we didn't actually finish school work until 2.30. But there weren't any fights. I let go of my agenda. I didn't lose my temper. I was kind. I was respectful. I was patient. Look, when I was just reading that from that mom, my eyes teared up a little bit. Can you hear that a little bit? I was kind. I was respectful. I was patient. Can you kind of hear there's some things in there that are very deep? Because what I heard was the opposite, which is when I'm all anxious about my agenda, I'm not always kind to these children that I love more than life itself. And then I beat myself up for it. And I feel bad

because I'm homeschooling or whether you're not home, it doesn't matter. But I've got these kids that I had, and then I end up being impatient with them and I get on them all the time and I feel bad about it. Can you hear that? And that's why I'm reading this because I want to honor this mom because she represents millions of moms who love their kids more than life itself. And can you hear? I don't know if she's proud of herself, but I'm proud of her. I think this is awesome. And I love how this is feeling. I was kind. I was respectful. I was patient.

You know how good that feels inside. I don't feel ashamed or embarrassed about how today went. I'll tell you from the outside, there's no need to feel ashamed and embarrassed. So you didn't get done until 2.30. We homeschooled Casey. Sometimes we didn't get schoolwork done for days at a time. So you got done by 2.30. You're done by 2.30. That's when all the kids in public school are just getting out. So you did well, mom. So I'm currently lying in bed resting while they're playing outside. That's cool. Little side note on some research. Free play is extremely important, and it relates to this.

You know what happens when we were kids, we did a lot of free play. We were just out there by ourselves, and we figured things out. You know what happens when there's an adult always supervising kids, and there's conflict among the kids? You know what happens? The kids don't work it out themselves. Instead, they switch their efforts to convincing the authority figure to be on their side. See how that works? Now they're not working it out amongst themselves. Now they know there's

an authority figure here. There's a teacher on the playground. There's a parent. There's a coach. So we need to now influence the adult so they take our side because they've been conditioned that they don't get to figure things out for themselves. There's always an anxious, controlling adult somewhere who can't handle conflict among their children and kids so that adults always fix it so the kids learn now to manipulate and try to influence the adult. That's why when your kids come in and they're always like, mom, he did this, he did this. And you're like, well, tell me the story. No way. We had 1500 kids come through our home. We had kids in our home all the time and they're always tattling on each other. Well, Joey did this,

he did this. He did this. And my response was, not my job to figure it out because I believe you're capable. You go back out and you figure it out yourself. I know, but you don't know what he did. Good, if you wanna spend the rest of your life being a victim and complaining about other people, do it, but you're gonna be miserable. But I'm not fixing your situations.

You know why? Because you guys can figure it out. You know why? Because when I was a kid, I had three brothers. We figured it out. We did it in our neighborhood. You're no different. You can do it. You go figure it out. And you know what would happen when I'd send them back out, send them back out, send them back out? They eventually learn how to figure things out themselves. And they're capable of it. But it's really cool. So you've got to let your kids figure

some things out by themselves. It's just going to be messy sometimes, but that's okay. And it's actually good. So laying in bed, resting while they're playing outside. And I love this line. I can change. And she did. And you can change too. It takes some work. It's not always easy, But I promise you, if you will start this new year working on changing and controlling yourself, your kids will change very quickly. When you step back, they will step up. I want you to get that 30 Days to Calm program. Go to our website. I'm going to look it up right here. It is celebrate calm.com. And on that website, I'm kind of stalling because the computer's kind of slow right now, because I want to be able to

tell you exactly where it is. But if you look under our website, it's kind of cool. I like it. I haven't looked at it in a little while. Isn't that funny? Because Casey handles it all. But anyway, if you go to, there's a products page. And it'll talk about this giving you the 30 days to calm program free when you get these other, you get three other products with it. Anyway, I'm not going to go through it. You can look it up yourself. But they're awesome. You want to look at it a different way?

If you invest in the programs on getting kids to listen the first time, you get Casey's program, Straight Talk for Kids. You will also get 30 Days Calm program. And oh, enjoying your strong will kid, strong will child. They're awesome. Just do it. Listen to it. Work at it. You will change your family. If you need help with that email, Casey, he'll help you out. Anyway, after the day I had yesterday, which was opposite of today, this was a welcome victory. Thank you for everything you teach and celebrate calm. Looking forward to more days like today. So Nicole, awesome job. I'm really proud of you. Proud of all the moms and dads out there who are busting it, right? Who are working at this to change themselves because you can do it. And once you do it, it is so liberating. Okay. Keep up the good work. Keep doing this. Contact us if you want some help. Okay. We're here to help you out. We're here

to serve you, but thanks for doing what you do. Again, go to CelebrateCalm.com. It's K-C-C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com or you can call him at 888-506-1871. He is our strong-willed child. He knows all this stuff inside and out, and he'll help you with your kids. Love you all. Take care. Bye-bye.