Calm Parenting Podcast - Watch Your Tone! Calming Intense Kids.

Episode Date: October 2, 2018

Watch Your Tone! Calming Intense Kids. Your child gets upset, lashes out, picks on her brother, and the family walks on eggshells around her. Then she beats herself up. Yelling won't work. But talking to her with a sweet, affirming tone will actually make it worse as well. So how can you use intensity and a different tone of voice to change these situations? While you can't control your child's behavior, you can always control your tone of voice. And it's more critical than you know. Come learn how to do this at our Parent BootCamps in Dallas and D.C. at [www.CelebrateCalm.com/Camps][1]. Or schedule a personal phone call with Kirk. Need help financially or otherwise? Email [e-mail] call 888-506-1871. 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. Hey everyone, this is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us at CelebrateCalm.com. I'm glad you're here. I wanted to kind of trick you a little bit so you'd listen to this. And so the name of the podcast is Watch Your Tone, because usually we use that with our kids, right? Like, you're not going to talk to me like that. Watch your tone. But what I wanted to talk about is watching your own tone of voice and why tone of

voice with a strong willed child is absolutely critical. You have to master this. Otherwise, I'm going to show you in this example how even like a calm, sweet tone isn't actually helpful. In this example, I'm going to talk about a 13-year-old. But very briefly, this works for a 4-year-old, a toddler, a 2-year-old, a 6-year-old, 8-year-old, any age. But if you have younger kids who are very strong-willed, I do not like using the, sweetie, baby, mommy really needs your help. I don't like that tone. I don't even like referring to myself or yourself as mommy or daddy with a strong-willed child

because it sounds like weakness to them. So that's for another time, but this is applicable no matter what age your child is. So in this case, I'm just going to use a girl as an example. We'll call her Morgan, and let's say she's 13. And this is based on a real-life example with some parents that I just talked to who are awesome parents. And so their daughter freaks out. She overreacts to things. Like many of your kids, she goes from like 0 to 100, and she's out of control, and she ends up lashing out.

Sometimes she gets physically aggressive even. She'll attack her brother verbally. And she knows out of control and she ends up lashing out. Sometimes she gets physically aggressive even. She'll attack her brother verbally. And she knows it's wrong. And her confidence is depleted. So she'll say things like, you know what, I just ruined this family. And I'm a monster. And so here's why controlling yourself is so important. And that's the bedrock upon which Celebrate Calm is founded,

which is there is only one person in life that you can control, and that is yourself. And the quickest way to change your child's behavior is to first control yourself. And you know already from listening to other podcasts, you can't react because just saying, you know what, you need to learn to control your mouth, Morgan. It doesn't help. It just escalates things and it further reinforces the shame. So where do you know you can't do that? But what about this, right? What about this? Because sometimes people will use a very calm voice and say, honey, you know, we love you, honey, but you know that's, you know, you know, that's not acceptable in this home. And so that's kind of a calm tone, right?

And you're not screaming, you're not yelling, and you think, well, that's good. Well, in this case with an intense, strong-willed child, that doesn't work either, right? And here's why tone is so important and why I want to do this podcast. It's why I like for people to come out to our live workshops because you get to hear me model the tone of voice in example after example, and it helps immensely. And by the way, we are on the road coming up in October a lot. We are crisscrossing the country everywhere, New Jersey, Northern Virginia, Maryland, Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri. We're everywhere. So look on our website at CelebrateCalm.com and you

can look up live events and all of these events listed there are free. You don't have to register. You just show up in most of these. Just show up and it's free and bring friends we do have a couple spaces left in our parent boot camp in Dallas Texas there's one on October 13th one on October 14th on a Saturday and Sunday we have a couple spots left and it's an awesome deal because you get all of the CDs everything we own and you get six hours with me and we're going to go through all of the toughest situations and so I encourage you just look that up. It's on our website under camps. So here's why tone is very critical, because when you respond with a, like, we love you, honey. We know you don't do that in our home. This is what your daughter, this is what your son hears and is thinking.

I'm feeling out of control. I already know that I'm ruining family life. I don't need to know that you love me. And I don't need you to tell me that what I'm doing is wrong because I already know that what I'm doing is wrong. What I'm trying to communicate is my world feels like it's out of control. And I don't know what to do. So I lash out and I hit, I know it's wrong to

treat my brother like that. That's why I feel so badly about it. And all you do is respond with like this nice, soft little, I love you, honey, right? You're not a monster. You're our daughter. We feel special about you and you're an important part of this family. And what she's saying is, I need some help learning how not to do this. Help me with my intensity so I don't feel like a bad kid and so I don't ruin the family and so you guys don't get divorced because of me. But see, she doesn't know to say that, right? Our kids don't even know. As adults, we rarely even know

why we're reacting to things, right? I can tell you what it is. It's your own anxiety as a parent. It's your own control issues, but we don't know. So it sounds kind of condescending to her. And so here's where instead I want to lead her, right? And I want to lead with intensity. And I've talked about this a little bit before, that when you have an intense child, think about this. You know in mathematics, when you take a negative and you multiply it by another negative, it actually creates a positive? It's sometimes like that with our kids. When you take an intensity, an intense child, and you match their intensity with your own intensity that is calm and in control, you can actually calm them down. But you have to use a very matter-of-fact tone, and it will sound very cold when you do this. But you're going to lead her to an activity, And it may sound something like this. Oh, Morgan,

I can tell you're really frustrated. You know what I do when I'm really frustrated? Oh, I go do X. And with this daughter, what I found out is she likes doing those silks. You know those things where they have like these silk ribbon kind of things, silky things hanging from the ceiling, and then you're climbing and hanging upside down and it's um very very and it's a very intense activity because your entire body is being used to balance and you're upside down and when the parents told me that about the silks it reinforced what i like to teach a lot which is observe your kids they'll tell you everything they need by what they do and so when their daughter is upside down it's actually very calming to her and when she's focused on being upside down in the air holding

on and wrapping these silks around her arms and around her legs and twisting think of all the concentration that that it takes to do that and all the intensity of her brain and her body to do that. And so like an obstacle course, right? If there's an obstacle course or gymnastics or something your child loves to do that's very physical, that can be a great thing to do when they're really upset. And you get to lead them and say, oh man, I can tell you're really upset. Totally get why you're upset. I'd be upset too. Hey, come with me. We're going outside. Come with me. We're going to go to the basement and we're going to start doing X. And I lead them to the activity, whatever it is. This girl also is very into music and actually very gifted with music. So I suggested that the parents have used the music.

You can start playing, try this sometime, start playing some very intense music when your child is getting intense. Now it may freak them out and if it does, don't do that anymore. But if it actually helps calm them down or the husband in this situation is actually a musician, so he could go and start blowing on his trumpet or his saxophone or start playing music that's kind of intense and lead and draw his daughter to that. Give her a place, a room, somewhere where she can start singing, playing her own music, doing something with intensity.

But part of it is the tone of voice. And you're going to have to really work at this and master this because it's kind of like you're stepping out of parent mode where you're reacting and trying too hard. And you're just looking at this other human being and saying, their world's out of control. She's really intense right now. And so I can deal with that. And I'm just going to go with this very, uh, not, no, no emotion. It's matter of fact, I see what's happening and I'm going into this mode, but I'm going to lead with some intensity, even in my voice. It's just that it's very controlled in that moment.

Does that make sense? Right. And so let's say, you know, she says these things like, I'm a monster. And we usually respond like, no, you're not, honey. You're an important part of our family. And she's like, ick, I already know I'm not a monster. I'm not looking for you to convince me and take a picture and say, actually, honey, you're not a monster. Instead, what I think I want to do is say, we've misunderstood you.

We apologize because we've misread this and we've thought and probably sent the message that your intensity is a bad thing. And it's not. We like your intensity. Your intensity is a good thing because it shows strength of spirit. There's energy. It's a gift, right? You're like a thoroughbred. You're like this beautiful, strong horse, right? And I would take her to a horse farmer somewhere and let her pet a horse. Let her be around horses and see the strength in them. Horses are beautiful and strong. And for many of the girls that we've worked with throughout the years, we found that horse therapy, and you don't have to spend a lot of money on this or any,

you just go to a farm somewhere and let your kids be around horses. And there's something about animals sometimes that's very settling. But to be able to look at that horse and say, look, when that horse is galloping, when she's cantering, when that horse is under control, she's a thing of beauty and there's nothing more beautiful in the world than a horse who is like that. And look, you're like a thoroughbred, honey. You are that same beautiful person. We just need to show you how to control yourself and control that intensity because we want your intensity. We need your intensity and your intensity is a good thing. And so by using some different language and using some intensity and not trying to convince

her, right? Instead of trying to convince her of things, we're going to use the intensity draw analogies. And I do, look, I do that with toddlers. With toddlers, you can show intensity by your body posture and just by your tone of voice. A two-year-old won't understand the words that you're saying, but they completely understand the tone with which you say them. And so I encourage you to do this. Look on the website under specials, under products. We have a special this week on the bag of CDs. The main part of that is something called 30 Days to Calm. And that's where I'm going to teach you how to deal with your triggers and to calm yourself so you stop reacting. But I also teach you how to work and use your tone of voice with some intensity in

different ways to calm your kids and we have different packages we have a younger kids package where it's completely tailored to all the tools that are needed for kids really about ages 2 to 7 and then we have a package for older kids that's geared for them and so if you need help with that email my son. His name is Casey. He was a really intense toddler and an intense teenager.

And he is now a beautifully intense but well under control 25-year-old. And so he knows your kids and he knows what you need. So contact him at Casey, C-A-S-E-Y, at CelebrateCalm.com. You'll find that on the website too.

Or call him at 888-506-1871, and he can put together a special package for you, and he can help you if you need help with the pricing. He'll help you with it. Just ask, right? And just know, as I close this up, that it's not just about words, right? You can't just verbally affirm your kids to confidence. Confidence comes from doing, doing and succeeding. So you're going to have to get some actions to reinforce that confidence. So using their gifts, talents, and passions, having a mission, having a mentor so that they can hear praise and affirmation from other adults, that's really critical in creating successes. So thank you for listening. I encourage you to start practicing this. Work on your tone of voice. Work on that.

Just watch how your kids respond to you. But please stop with the overly sweet. Stop with the lecturing. Stop with a snotty attitude too. You know what? If you would just calm down, you know what? If you don't change your tone, because we do snotty attitude too, and you can't do that either because that will infuriate your kids. So calm, even matter of fact tone says, I'm in control of myself. Your world is out of control. Mine's not. I'm in complete control. Hey, if we can help you in any way, reach out to us. That's what we're here for. We love helping people and we want to change your family tree and we want to change your daily family life. So just reach out to us, celebratecalm.com and we're really happy to help. Thanks so much. Bye-bye.