Calm Parenting Podcast - When Kids Are Irritating—Stop Fixing, Start Building

Episode Date: May 18, 2020

Click here to get the Calm Parenting University DVD and Workbook series for only $99 (Reg. $300). 40 strategies that will change your family. Need help? Email [e-mail] for the best customer service on the planet. He can help you get the right resources for your family within your budget.60% OFF NOW. 25 HOURS OF STRATEGIES FOR ONLY $197 (Reg $497). Prices return to $497 next week, so order now and change your home. "I play your CDs in the morning because they comfort me and make me feel like I'm not alone, that my kids are going to be okay. That's priceless to me." Click here to get our Special Sale for 60% OFF. 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 I have an idea for you this week. I want to take a little different tack. It still fits within our whole framework, but it kind of came from a mom and dad who wrote in, and you know, we'll get to that. Welcome to the Calm Parenting Podcast. This is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. So I got this email over the weekend, and it was a family who had gotten, we have a thing called Calm Parenting University. It's actually a DVD program. You need to get physical or best thing is just download it right on your computer or tablet.

And then that way the kids can watch on their phone. You can watch on your computer, whatever you want to do. It also comes with electronic workbook. So everything's written down and I have people who will take that and create like word document, create their own notes and ask you a lot of questions. It's kind of good family discussion time. It's four different sessions on discipline, defiance, controlling yourself, motivating your kids. So it's kind of nice, like 45 minute video, not too long. Even dads can hang in for that. And it's good because it's written and you can really wrestle with some of the ideas, but you've got 40 specific strategies written out. But anyway, this family writes in to me, and they're like, hey, we turned this over to our kids because we just plainly were just frustrated with them and said, apparently, our parenting isn't working. Why don't you guys come

up with a plan? Now, I don't necessarily recommend that, although I do love it because it's about creating ownership in your kids, giving them ownership and saying, look, if you guys want to be free, if you want us to stop bugging you all the time, we'll start stepping up, controlling yourself, make it happen. So the kids were like, well, we get to make up our own rules. And they were like, hey, within our boundaries, if you learn how to control yourself, we won't have to. You guys watch. This will be your assignment since it's a, at least it's a screen. You can watch it. It's a video. Well, it turns out the kids kind of liked it. Now, a couple of the tough discipline

things they didn't like, right? Because I'm encouraging their parents to be firm, be tough, be not emotional, but just be tough with your kids. Not let them get away with things. Tell them one time and then take action. Not a lot of drama. But it was interesting. The kids actually came back with a plan.

And they said, we don't want you to be the dictator. We want to be able to step up ourselves. And so they came up with a reasonable plan. And the parents were like, hey, let's work on this. If you guys can handle this and you guys can control yourselves, then we'll control ourselves. And so a couple of things came out of this. I want to make kind of three, four, five main points here. You know me. I may blabber on a little bit about some things, but I'm going to try to make it short. Number one, here's what these parents learned,

and I talk about it a lot. What irritates you most about your child? Is it that arguing? Is it they're not trying their hardest? Is it that they're indisciplined? Is it their attitudes that they can't follow through? What is it that irritates you about your child? Because what I've found over 20 years is the trait that irritates you most about your child is probably the very trait they need to be successful in life. And that argumentative child is a child who is

very bright, has very good critical thinking skills, and he wants to exercise that skill, right? And so you've got to give him opportunities to use that brain, just not to argue with you, but to use it in positive ways and to cultivate that. That child who likes to, let me give you an example. You may have heard this before. We're in Yosemite hiking in between speaking gigs out in California. By the way, we're doing Zoom conferences now. We're doing for an adoption care organization in Michigan. We're able to do three different sessions for a couple hundred parents, and we can do it at a fraction of the cost that normally costs. See, this is, you've got to take what life gives you and be flexible with it, right?

So obviously, we're not traveling a whole lot right now because of the COVID-19 thing, but we are actively booking events in the fall. But we're also doing these Zoom conferences, which are awesome because we get to impact a couple hundred people, but at a fraction of the normal cost because we don't have to travel and get a hotel and a car and gas and eat out. And we can do it in such a way that we can also have extended Q&A, which, you know, I oftentimes, I do a lot of Q&A at live events, but I don't often get to do as much as I want because you got to go, people got to, right?

And online, it's like, hey, I'll sit there for a long time because I'm sitting in my house. So if you're interested, email Casey, C-A-S-E-Y at celebratecalm.com and he'll help you set up a Zoom conference with your organization or homeschool group, whatever it is, or teachers. We do training for thousands of

teachers on Zoom. It would be awesome. Or we can use another platform. It doesn't have to be Zoom. So here's what my idea is. So we were talking about the Yosemite thing, right? About we met these parents. And I was like, because I always meet the parents of the difficult kids. And I was like, tell me about your son. Well, when he was a kid, he never stopped talking. All I did was like, because I always meet the parents of the difficult kids. And I was like, tell me about your son. Well, when he was a kid, he never stopped talking. All he did was talk, talk, talk, and he memorized useless information, couldn't remember anything we told him. And they spent their child's entire childhood trying to fix and change him.

As it turns out, he is now the play-by-play announcer for the Boston Red Sox farm team. What does he get paid to do? Not shut up. He gets paid to do? Not shut up. He gets paid to talk and memorize useless information, which makes him extremely interesting. And I would encourage you, you know, your kids may have like an anti-authoritarian kind of kick to them. Good. Why not use that to your advantage? Because they're contrarian people. Contrarian people are difficult people at times,

but they can make a lot of money. They make really good entrepreneurs and they're really good at going against the grain, which makes life harder for them at times, but it also makes them front runners and leaders and good entrepreneurs. So train them to be like that. Stop fighting everything.

Tell me what's irritating you and then do this. Tell me why it's irritating you and it will point to something in you that needs to change. No blame, no guilt. It's not your fault. It's just use this to your advantage. Stop fighting everything what dig in and find why does this irritate me so much maybe it points to something in myself that i need to change maybe i not need to stop being so rigid maybe i need to lighten up a little bit maybe i need to learn to enter into this that's what we talk about a lot on that no bs program is enter into the things that irritate you and make you afraid and enter in and learn from it. Learn from your kids. We have COVID-19 time. You have nothing to do. I know you're busy, but we're not running around. We're not doing all that stuff. Do you

ever wonder what did you do? What were you wasting your time with three months ago when you were running around like a crazy person? what was it really accomplishing? All the fights over homework and this and that, extracurriculars and running around and being so busy. Why were we doing that? This is an awesome time, though it's very difficult for a lot of people. It can be an awesome time to recalibrate your life and find out what were we doing? And what can we start doing differently? What can I change?

So here's second thing. For one week, and then I want you to make it one month and then the rest of your life, you do this. You have spent your child's entire childhood, all day, all night, focused on raising your child, disciplining your child, motivating your child, lecturing your child, changing your child. Figure everything out that you need to change about them. And now you're lost because you've lost yourself. You've lost your identity because you stopped being an individual and a grown adult. You became a mother, you became a father. And now, and watch, you even stop being a husband and a wife because you're so consumed with being a mommy or a daddy. And

you're so consumed with making them successful, your kids successful, that you've now become dependent on them. Their entire life, every choice they make is a proxy for you. And when they misbehave, or they don't do it the right way, or they don't live up to your expectations, now you've failed, and you feel like a failure. See, that's not coming from me. All right? I don't do blame. I don't do guilt. Okay? I want us all to change, break generational patterns. But it's that. It's you feel like a failure because what have you done wrong? Why didn't you do this?

The fact is you're doing too much. And it's like this family that's going through that calm parenting university thing. By the way, just look at it on celebrate.com. You know what we did? It's usually $300. We made it $99. Why? COVID-19 time. We don't want people to did? It's usually 300 bucks. We made it 99 bucks. Why? COVID-19 time,

we don't want people to have a barrier to getting our stuff. 40 strategies in four different sessions, written down, video, awesome, 99 bucks. Was that two and a half bucks a strategy that'll change your family? Not bad. Pretty awesome. Go through it with your kids. So here's what that family found out. When they gave the kids some space and asked the kids to step up, the kids actually did, but they had to back off, right? Because what happens, you feel like a failure and your kids aren't living up to your expectations. So what do you do? You double down, more pressure, more pressure, vicious cycle. So number three, why don't we focus on building your story, right? I was talking to this mom. I did a phone consultation last week. Awesome mom, single mom, going through a tough time. And I stopped her at one point and I said, I need to tell you something. You're a really strong

person. You have a lot of strength inside. And she immediately came back and said these words. It makes me want to argue with you because you saying that makes me feel really uncomfortable. Why have we spent so much time trying to fix our kids and focus on them and we ignore ourselves? Look, this is not selfishness. You're listening to the Calm Parenting Podcast. And please share this, by the way. You're listening to a parenting podcast. By nature, you're not a selfish person. You're trying to become a better parent, right? You're not going to be selfish. The most selfless thing that you can do is work on yourself and become a new you and become a calm person who can look at your kids when they're going through tough times and you don't have to freak out and overreact

so you can see what's really going on because you're not freaking out. You can see the situation clearly and instead of immediately reacting, you can respond with some wisdom and give your kids insight and actually help them, right? So when I take care of myself, when I focus on building up myself so that I'm stronger and wiser and more patient and more, right, more giving because I don't have all that anxiety inside, now I can focus on giving out to other people. So what are your gifts, talents, and passions? What have you stopped doing, right? What did you used to do that you stopped doing because you're so consumed with your kids all the time, right? You want your kids to learn, to read. What are you curious about? What are you listening to? What are you reading? You start doing it now, right? That's a cool thing. Stop making everything about them. Stop

trying to make them happy with everything. If you want to listen to a podcast on something interesting to you, I'm listening to this current one from the psychologist. It's simply fascinating. And so while you're listening to this podcast, not just mine, but other people's podcasts, let your kids see you're curious. You're learning. Ask them what they think about it. Invite questions. Lead by example, right? Sit down. You know, this Calm Parenting University thing or our CDs, whatever program you get of ours, just start listening to it and then tell your kids, you guys don't get to watch this.

It's just for parents. It's a great way to get them to watch. So you do that. So focus on building your story and building your family. And then the fourth or fifth, I don't even know where I am right now, is this. Focus on building your child, not fixing them. We spend 85% of our energy trying to fix our children instead of spending 85% of our energy building on their strengths, cultivating what

they're good at. And I want you to remember this phrase, affirm what you see there now. Affirm the qualities that you see now. Instead of spending all of your time focused on what isn't there, or what you don't want, what you don't like, what you want to fix. Affirm what you see now. Swalk up to them. Write them a note and say, you know, I've noticed about you. And then say something positive and say, I've noticed when you care about something, when you're into something, you're very curious and you're persistent and you go for it. And I love that quality. You know what I've noticed in you? You're not afraid to push back. You're not afraid. You're not afraid to be contrarian.

I wish I was more like you sometimes because I kind of follow the pack. I wish I was a little bit more like you. And just affirm it. And then walk away and chew on some wood or do something, right? Whatever it is to stick in your mouth, right? So you don't go to, but it would be really great if you could start doing this. Affirm what is there now. This week, next couple of weeks,

through the rest of May and then all through the summer, stop trying to fix everyone. Stop trying to motivate everybody. Stop trying to fix everything that's going on and instead build your family. Focus on building your story. Follow your passions, right? Notice what is there right now and stop trying to get caught in that, step out of that vicious cycle. Does that make sense? That's pretty cool. Less than 15 minutes, we got this done. If you need help, call Casey or email Casey, C-A-S-E-Y at celebratecalm.com. We've got that Calm Parenting University. It's on the website,

99 bucks, no BS program. Still have that 99 bucks. We've got a get everything package, a Calm Parenting package, all kinds of stuff. If you need help, ask Casey, email him. He'll put together a specific package based on your family's needs within your budget. It's pretty awesome. He's an awesome kid. He's just like your difficult kids, except he's grown up now and he's awesome. Thank you for listening. Spread the news. Invite us. Let's do a Zoom conference with your organization. Anyway, thank you guys for listening. You're good moms. You're good dads. Love you guys. Bye.