Calm Parenting Podcast - When Kids Are Wrong & Do Irritating Things

Episode Date: June 21, 2021

When Kids Are Wrong & Do Irritating Things: Your son tears his pancakes with his bare hands. Your daughter doesn’t clean her room or do schoolwork the way you want. Your child procrastinates. It’s irritating. How can you use these moments to actually teach your child AND bond, rather than creating more power struggles? Want personal mentoring with Kirk via Phone? Click here to learn about mentoring packages. We are including the No B.S. Program FREE with all mentoring purchases OR you can get it here for $99: https://celebratecalm.com/nobs/ Want to book a LIVE EVENT in 2021/2022?! We are now booking IN PERSON 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. So I get it. You've got a child who does things sometimes in weird ways, annoying ways, frustrating ways, sometimes even the wrong way. And you project into the future and you think if this child can't do simple things the right way, they're going to be rejected by society. Who's going to hire them? Who's going to marry them? I'm going to be a failure as a parent. Shouldn't I be doing more? What are other people going to think about me as a parent? Right? That's all very normal.

And then what happens is you get on that child continually and you find yourself spending most of your time trying to correct and fix that child and everything that they do and it backfires on you and you get more and more power struggles and you get more and more power struggles and you get more and more frustrated. It doesn't work. So how do you handle this? That's what we're going to talk about today on this episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast. So welcome. This is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us at Celebrate Calm. If you need help, reach out to our son who was frustrating and annoying and sometimes defiant and

talked back everything that your kids is are very particular very sensory had to wear this just the right clothes same thing hoodie sweatshirt 18 days in a row needed things to be just so you couldn't play a board game with him because he'd cheat or change the rules of the game, right, or quit like your kids do. So he understands your kids because he was pretty much your child. But now he's a 28-year-old young man who's highly disciplined, very motivated, very conscientious, follows through just fine, doesn't really have focus issues when he's motivated, and he'll help you. So tell us about your family. What's going on? How old are your kids? We'll give you insight and strategies, some ideas. We'll help you choose the right

resources for your family, even within your budget. We've got big sales going on on the No BS Program Calm Parenting Package. So visit us, reach out. His name is Casey, C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com. So I get this question, good email. So I changed the names to protect the innocent here. But at breakfast this morning, our son Evan decided to tear up his pancakes by hand rather than cut them with a knife and fork. So my husband John told him to stop using his hands and to use a knife. Now I'm adding my own tone because if my son were tearing up his pancakes by hand, I would get irritated by it. And I'd immediately want to do with this dad, dad, which was don't use your hand, son. Hey, Casey, use, you use a knife. Here,

let me show you, right? You can feel that tension. And when you hear it, if you've ever watched other people parent their kids the way you do it, you cringe because when you're on the outside, you can see like, this isn't going to end well. So Evan, the child ignores him and finished doing what he wanted. Then Evan picked up the syrup and began squirting it on his torn up pancakes. And I can imagine his dad is like, you're not going to waste my syrup. You don't need all of that. Do you know how much syrup costs? Syrup prices are up 34% this year, right? So John's dad says, hey, Evan, that's enough. That's enough. While raising his voice. I think I pretty much nailed that

because just as Casey was your child, I was your husband or I was you, right? So son refuses to listen and continues drowning his pancakes. So dad says, Evan, you're no longer allowed to use this syrup or the food I buy if you're going to waste them. And so he snatches the syrup from Evan's hands. And what happens? The kid ends up pushing his plate away and actually walking out of the house. Right. And we've all been there. You may have done that yesterday or today. And so mom writes like none of these mealtime battles are worth fighting over. Evan, our son, knows right from wrong, but he wants to do things his way, of course. And my husband seems to want to win with correcting Evan at the table during meals. And let's just expand that. We do it all

day long with how they do their schoolwork, how they do their chores, how they get dressed, how they brush their teeth, how they do everything. So how do we handle this in a different way? So I'm going to give you a few responses. One is this. Look, John, this dad, he's a good dad. He wants his son to learn proper manners so that he's not rejected by society. And so he grows up into a responsible young man. And when he's over other people's houses, they don't look at him like you're a caveman. And he wants to know that when he gets older, he's not going to be at a business lunch or a business breakfast when he's 27, tearing his pancakes apart with his hands. But I can guarantee you, he's not.

He's not going to do this when he's 23 and 29. He may do it at a neighbor's house, but who cares? He's not going to do it when he's 29. He's just not. He's doing it now and you're missing an opportunity. And by the way, let's say that at age 28, he is at a business breakfast and he's tearing up his pancakes.

You know what's gonna happen? I can guarantee you. His colleagues are gonna look at him like, nope, he's a little bit weird doing that, but he's a genius and we really need him running those computer systems and doing that artificial intelligence coding. So who really cares?

Because a lot of people, don't be offended, a lot of people that are engineers and software people, sometimes they do things in an odd way, but they're so fantastic at what they do. Everybody's like, I don't care. He's making us a lot of money. He's really good at what he does. But the truth is, he's not going to do this later on.

He's doing it now. And it's your anxiety projecting out into different situations. It's your own fear of embarrassment. And if I may be honest, which I may because it's my podcast, that's just because you're immature. Is that not true? You're immature and you're too concerned with what other people are going to think about your parenting. So you begin parenting your child according to how other people may judge you instead of parenting

your child according to the way your child is made. And so you get on them and you get on them and it doesn't work. And so dad's a good dad who just wants his son to use a knife and a fork. There's nothing wrong with that. I get that. He's justified in telling his son to listen and follow directions. But if you have listened to our Strong-Willed Child program or any of these podcasts, you know that these kids march to the beat of their own drum. And they do things in odd ways that annoy us, but they aren't morally wrong. And the child's motives aren't bad. He simply likes eating his pancakes in a different way. And I had to learn this lesson the hard way hundreds of times with my own son, with the kids that came to our house. It was my own control issues.

I wanted things done a certain way. And the truth is my way was the better way. And it was the right way. But it was mainly because it was my way. And I had so much anxiety about my son growing up and being a failure, but it simply doesn't work doing this. So I'm going to give you some ideas, but here's one. Here's what I want dad to do next time. And this is a huge opportunity.

And I encourage you, listen to the Calm Parenting Package, go through the dad-seated, go through the mom-seated, go through the 30 Days to Calm and learn how to control yourself and your anxiety and your own immaturity and all of those control issues you have. Otherwise, you will create. I believe this to be true. 85% of the power struggles with your child originate with you. There's no blame and no guilt. It's not that it's your fault. It's a simple recognition that you don't like the way they do things, but it's mainly your anxiety and your control issues. And here's the good news. Because the only person you can control in life is yourself, you now have a lot of power. Because if 85% of power struggles originate with stuff within you,

your own perfectionism, all your own issues, that means you can control 85% of them by simply controlling yourself. And here's a huge opportunity. And this is, I'm going to dovetail this into something off the No BS program. It's 25 action steps. And here's number 18. Enter into your child's world and let your child teach you something. Be curious about them. So next time you're eating pancakes, what if dad were to say, hey, Evan, I never would have thought to eat my pancakes like that. I'm curious. Does it make them taste differently?

Do you like how it feels tearing them up like that? And then do the same exact thing and tear up your pancakes and say, you know, when I tear these up, it allows me to soak in more butter and syrup on each piece. That's kind of a cool discovery. And then either move on or just notice your child's response. Stop fighting everything. Enter into their world. It will annoy you.

But enter into it and be curious. because you'll discover it's a very interesting place even though it annoys you. Because otherwise, you know what's going to happen in this case? Dad and son are slowly going to drift apart. The son will sense that dad doesn't really like him and is never pleased. And that chasm widens. And dad justifies it because of all the weird and bad things that the son does. And before long, there's a little bit of underlying hostility. And then over a long period of time, there's no relationship. And then it becomes outright hostility in the teen years. And you don't want that. So stop fighting it. Control yourself.

Enter in and be curious. And here's why. By the way, when it comes to food stuff, relax. Model it for your kids at mealtime. If you want your kids to eat healthy, you know what you should do? Eat healthy food yourself. If you want them to learn how to use table manners, use table manners yourself. Model it for them. They will watch. They do watch. They do know the right thing and they will come to it.

I promise you they will. Casey didn't eat healthy when he was a little kid, but guess what? We would eat our spinach salad with grilled chicken and we would eat healthy food. And we took all the soda and all the junk stuff out of our house and we ate healthy. And over time, guess what happened? He got motivated to eat healthy. Why? Because he discovered girls and he wanted to look good. And he discovered when he didn't eat well, it didn't show up that awesome on his skin and he didn't feel good. So now he is very highly disciplined with his food. Eats extremely well. Exercises more than I do.

We modeled it so you can relax. But here's the main point of this. If you will enter into this and stop fighting it, you know what you're going to do? You're going to discover a lot of things. We may find out that Evan is a really tactile kid and he tears apart his pancakes because he likes the way it feels on his hands and he's very sensory. See, now I can use that when he's at school. I can give teachers some ideas to teach him using tactile things during homework time. I can do that, right? Maybe it's because he likes puzzles. Because when you have, like picture this, all the little pancake pieces

are put together. Who knows? Maybe he moves them around on his plate and he builds little things with this. Is it what you want him to do? No. But he's learning. He's curious. And so maybe he likes to solve puzzles and he's a problem solver. Maybe he's a visual learner who sees in three dimensions. So you begin teaching him math with pieces of pancakes and pieces of other things that he can manipulate with his hands. But if all we do is react to our kids all the time with a no, don't do that or else, we miss all these awesome things we could be learning. Find what it is and begin being curious and say, look, that's not the way I would normally do it, but I'm curious. What do you get out of that? Why are you doing that? And then do it yourself and say, I can see so you like laying upside down

off the sofa I think I'll do that too oh now I see the whole room looks different this way and you begin doing that with your kids and you will learn so many things about them that you will learn how to motivate them better you will learn how to get them to exercise. You will learn how to teach them better because you're seeing how their brains work. Now, I'm not going to do the longer version. In fact, I'm not going to do this at all because I feel like I've talked long enough about this. But here's your goal this week. This is your mission this week. Enter into your child's world. Let them teach you something. Let your child teach you something about puzzles, about electronics, about how they do certain things, how they eat.

Relax a little bit. Enjoy the child. Be curious. Enter in. And one of the best ways you can ever motivate and bond with a strong-willed child is to actually be interested in what they're interested in, in how they do it, even if it's not the right way, and let them teach you something. Because in the course of teaching, they learn more and it builds their confidence.

If you don't have it, I would definitely go through the No BS program. It's 25 action steps. We show you how to do this. It's very concise. Dads really like it. Moms like it too. But it's very, very concrete. And if you want to help with the whole package, you get everything or get the Calm Parenting Package.

They're on sale right now. It's way cheaper than therapy and way better. And you'll build a relationship with your child that you enjoy the rest of your life and motivate them and be able to discipline them. And they will listen to you. We love you. If we can help you reach out, Casey, C-A-S-E-Y at celebrate calm.com. Talk to you later. Bye-bye.