Calm Parenting Podcast - When Kids Push Buttons & Yell at Mom

Episode Date: September 18, 2018

Your kids are expert button-pushers. So how do you respond instead of react? A child yells at his mom, dad yells at the child, and then mom has to clean up the mess. Hubby feels criticized and checks out. Resentments build. Tonight when a tense situation or power struggle occurs, how can you turn this into an OPPORTUNITY to completely change your family? Come learn how to do this at our Parent BootCamps in Dallas and D.C. at www.CelebrateCalm.com/Camps. 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. And I want to talk today about your triggers, about you've got kids who push your buttons. You've got things that just irritate you to no end. And you tend to react to those things. And it just never works, right? You know that. Reacting to your kids, reacting to your spouse, reacting to other people in situations never, ever, ever works. And so one of the things we love to go through, whether it's in our parent boot camp, by the way, we just opened up two new

ones, the final ones of the year in Dallas, October 13th and 14th. And then also we opened up a new one in DC on Saturday, November 10th. So you can find that celebrate calm.com and just click on the tab that has camps on it. And we have a special also this, this process I'm going to go through is in the 30 days to calm program. And what I love about that program is it's not just about like, Oh, you just need to breathe deeply. You just need to be calm. We go through really specific situations and identify what are your triggers? What irritates you most? And then we go through the process of why it irritates you. What do you normally do, right? When that trigger hits, when your child pushes your buttons, what do you do? How does that usually work out? What usually

works out in you lecturing, yelling, screaming, child crying, and that doesn't work. And so then we go through a process of, well, what are we going to do differently next time? And we actually practice working on the trigger so that when that trigger occurs, when that child speaks disrespectfully to you, when he doesn't listen the first time, when he's dawdling in late, when those things happen, what are you going to do differently next time? And we walk through that in detail. So I encourage you, listen to those CDs, come to the parent boot camp because that's what we're going to do for six hours at the boot camp. We're going through our triggers to finally get control of ourselves

so that we can lead in the home, and it's a really cool process. So I'll give you a quick one that I know is going to happen at our next boot camp because it's kind of like the number one trigger of a dad and a husband. Here's what it is. So first thing that happens is his dad walks into the home and he hears his child yelling at his wife. That's a huge trigger for us, right? We don't want that child. You're not going to yell at your mother. So that's what we do. We react immediately, right? You're not going to talk like that to your mother. What kind of kid do you think you are? When I was a kid, we would have never done that. You better cut that out. I'm tired of you talking to your mother like

that. I'm tired of you talking like that. If you don't get control of your mouth, right? Isn't it funny as we're telling them, if you don't get control of your mouth and we don't even have control of ourselves, right? So we ended up sending a child to his room. The child runs up to his room crying. And you know what happened with all of that? Guess what? Now, mom, who was getting yelled at by the child, this child that she has birthed or

adopted and has cleaned up his vomit and taken care of him, is now yelling at him. Now, because her husband didn't lead the child to calm, now has to clean up the whole mess that just happened. So now she's upstairs for two or three hours trying to smooth over the whole situation with their child and there's tension between husband and wife now and the wife is resentful because hubby just created more messes instead of calming them down hubby's resentful because he thinks well my wife is just too weak and she gives in why are you letting him talk to you like that And so he feels like I'm in a no-win situation. I just heard my child talking to my wife like that. What am I supposed to do?

Stand back and let it happen? So he jumps in and tries to protect her, and in the course of doing so, actually makes it worse. And this happens every day. And these situations happen all the time. And you end up losing respect for each other and the resentment resentments build right she's like inside she's like you know what I just wish you'd stay at work a little bit longer why don't you go away on a business trip because you know what I can take my child yelling at me what I can't take is you coming in and yelling at the child and making everything worse, and then I have to pick it up.

And so he ends up being upset, just stomping off. And listen, everything I'm saying, I'm not judging anybody. I did all of this stuff myself, so that's how I know it so well. Here's what he ends up, you know what? Nothing I ever do is good enough for you. You want me to be involved, but then I try to be involved, but it's never good enough. All you do is criticize me. Fine. You know what, you guys would just be better off without me. I can't tell you how many times I did that, but that's just me, men, being immature and not knowing what to do. And the reason I bring up this situation is because all of these nasty moments, and this is going to be a short podcast

because I just really want you to focus on this. I'm not going to do a long one. Think about it. These situations happen daily, weekly in our homes, and I believe that the nastiest interactions are the biggest opportunities to teach your kids lifelong skills to model what you want but you know what just happened the wife in this situation and i get it right she's upset you just made everything worse worse. She just missed a huge opportunity to tell her husband something that I guarantee will soften his heart and make him want to change. There's a phrase that you can use, wives, right? That if you

were able to step back in this situation and acknowledge what your husband was trying to do that would make a huge difference for him, right? And hubby, you just missed a huge opportunity to do what your wife really wanted, which is to calm the situation down and take the pressure off of her because of instead of coming and yelling at the child, you actually came in and were able to calm that child down first and move him away from that situation and lead him to a calm place. I guarantee you, your wife will love that and she needs you to do that. And you can do that, but you've got to know the strategy. You've got to know how to do this because when you do that, I guarantee once you leave the child to calm, then the child will know, well, yeah, I need to go in and I need to apologize to mom.

And he will show contrition instead of you just yelling like, you need to apologize to your mother, instead of demeaning him. You can actually teach him in that moment after you've calmed him down how to handle his frustration because a lot of the kids, they hold things together at school. They're upset. They're frustrated. So they come home and they dump all their frustration out on their mother. And what I want to get to is not just, you can't talk to your mother like that. Or, moms, you can't talk to me like that teenage daughter or change your attitude. Instead of all of these things that always erupt, I want to teach the child how to deal with his frustration

so when he comes home from school upset, he has a code word to use with his mother. He has a different way to handle his frustration and this whole scene doesn't happen. But here's the thing. These scenes happen again and again and again and again and again and again. And I'll just be honest with you. People say, well, you know, one day we'll change it.

Well, guess what? Your relationship with your child is going to be ruined by then and your marriage is going to be ruined by that time when you finally make it a priority. You can't put this stuff off because I guarantee you there are so many women listening to this right now and inside they are counting down the days until their children graduate from high school and then they are out of there because they are worn down and they just can't handle it anymore because it's gone on for so long. And sometimes husbands have dismissed, oh, I'll do better. I'll try harder.

B.S. If you value something, you'll change it and you'll do it. And I put this off for a long time, too. So, again, no judgment, no blame, no guilt, but I am being, look, I'm getting older and I just know how things work. If you don't make this a priority and start to change these things now, it's not getting better. It's not just going to magically go away. You're going to have to man up. You're going to have to woman up and you're going to have to figure out some of these things so you don't keep reacting,

so you don't keep lecturing your kids to death so that they don't want to hear your voice anymore. I want your kids to want to hear your voice because you have wisdom. But if you don't stop getting on them and lecturing them, it'll only get worse. So change it now. You've got to work at this stuff. And it is work, and it's hard but i will tell you this when you learn these phrases and how to handle these situations it's a heck of a lot easier than cleaning up the three-hour mess that just happened because i can give you a couple little

phrases and a couple little words and strategies that you can use next time. And your wife will be like, hubby, that was awesome. That's what I've been looking for. And hubby's going to be like, it wasn't that hard. Like I didn't have to fix everything, right? No, you don't have to fix everything, but you need to lead your child to a calm place in the middle of that situation. And it can be awesome. So I encourage you dig into the, uh, uh, uh, dig into the podcast, right? Listen to the CDs and work at them, work at them. Come to the parent boot camps where we'll go through this in great detail. By the way, if you sign up early for the boot camps, you get all of our 12 CD program downloads for free. And the great thing is you can listen, your spouse can listen. If you're a single mom,

you can listen. You can share them with your parents, who often judge you. You can share with friends. You can share them with teachers and other people. But if you need help with that, just look at our website, CelebrateCalm.com. Email my son. My son, look, all of these stories that I tell, it's about us and our son. I mean, this is the exact situation where he would come and yell at my wife and I'd be all upset at him and do all these things. This was our life until we changed. So call him or email Casey, Casey, C-A-S-E-Y, at CelebrateCalm.com, or call him at 888-506-1871. He totally gets the situation.

He was this kid. He is your kid, and he will help you out. And if you need help financially, ask for it. Be bold and assertive. We like that. And we will help you out. If you need help financially, ask for it. Be bold and assertive. We like that and we will help you out. Here's my final thing. I'm about generational change. It's not just about changing your child's behavior. It's about generational change of breaking these negative patterns that are in your home, the constant reacting and power struggles. It only changes when the parents begin to change. And it's a great thing because you can change. I know you can because I did. And I'm not that awesome a person.

So if I can do it, you can do it. So thank you for listening. And stay cool, stay calm, and lead your kids to calm. Thanks so much. Bye-bye.