Calm Parenting Podcast - When Kids Rage & Feel Helpless

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Starting point is 00:02:31 I'm stupid, I'm dumb, and it's scary. And I want to address that on today's episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast. So let's just jump into this. You guys know who I am. You know we've got a big sale at CelebrateCalm.com and all of our materials address these insights and help you know exactly what to do. So if you're interested, take advantage of it. We've got a new app that people love. It makes it easy to listen to and you can reach out to Casey, C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com. So here's what I want to get to. So let's take this situation. You've got a kid who really likes being with his friends, likes going to sleepovers and doing things like that or playdates, but he doesn't

Starting point is 00:03:11 always get to do it. And when he doesn't get to do it, he gets furious. And these aren't just like, well, I'm just a little bit disappointed. This is rage. And the rage starts coming out of, I'm dumb. I'm stupid. You know, it's my fault that I don't get to go. This is the dumbest thing ever. I'm so stupid. If I wouldn't have gotten so upset the other day, I would have been able to do it. And right now, all my friends are together, but I'm not there. It's because I'm so dumb and I'm so stupid. I hate myself. And you will hear that. And sometimes when I'm doing phone consults with parents, I'll give voice to that and they'll be like, yes, that's exactly what it sounds like. And so you have to get inside the head of the child and what they're feeling, because this will obviously will freak you out. Doesn't freak

Starting point is 00:04:04 you out. Look, it makes perfect sense to me. This is a kid maybe that we're dealing with who feels less than a brother or sister, doesn't always feel great about himself at school, but he really likes his friendships. But then he does stuff that causes him to lose the very thing that he values. And so sometimes it comes out as you of you're stupid and I hate you. But I guarantee you most of the time what I want you to hear is there's a helplessness there, right? And it's so scary in the moment that sometimes we miss that and we do that thing of we try to make it all better. And I don't want you to make it all better. Proactively, here's what I encourage you to do.

Starting point is 00:04:46 One is, in this situation, let's acknowledge that what your child has said to you. Look, many of you have teenagers, and all they're about is their friendships and social interactions. They have a fear of missing out on social media together, and we'll be like, oh, it's not a big deal. It is a big deal to them.

Starting point is 00:05:04 Don't dismiss it, right? It doesn't work when your spouse does it to you to dismiss your concerns. It's a big deal to them. So if you need to occasionally, you can even apologize, not groveling, but in a mature adult kind of way, say, look, I was thinking about this.

Starting point is 00:05:22 We haven't listened to you really because we've dismissed the fact that your friendships and time with your friends means so much to you. And we've dismissed. So I want to apologize for not taking that seriously enough. And what I want to affirm you for is the fact that you do want to be with your friends and that you value that. Because here's what we look inside. This is what I would say to you is we always miss the good stuff that's going on because we're so focused on all the bad stuff, right? And what we miss in this particular case is, well, we could have the opposite. We could

Starting point is 00:05:57 have a kid who is self-isolating, who's just sitting up in his bedroom playing on video games and on his screens literally 20 hours a day. We could have that, but in this case, we don't. So I can affirm that, child, and say, you know what I love about you? You love being with your friends, and that's a really good thing. But here's the deal. You know, you're getting a little bit older, and so we want to be able to give you that. See, I don't want to dangle things. I want to lift kids up. I want to bring them up. I want to give them something to shoot for. So in this case, what we could say is, look, you want to spend more time with your friends and we want you to have that time too.

Starting point is 00:06:33 Inherent in letting you do sleepovers is we're letting go of a little bit of control because I've got a lot of anxiety, in case you couldn't tell. But that means you've got to demonstrate that you can control yourself so that we can give you more freedom. See how that works? And so in this particular case, I may at times, because I'm going to ask this child to work on something, we want progress, not perfection. So look, I know that being with your friends is really, really important to you. And that sometimes it feels like you kind of sabotage that because you get really upset

Starting point is 00:07:08 and say some things that I know you don't mean. So I want to give you some tools. And I want to help you out with this so that you don't sabotage yourself. And so you can grow in this area. Because throughout your teen years, you're going to want more freedom. And I want you to have more freedom. So that means we're going to have to work on learning how to control yourself. And by the way, as a family, we want to constantly be growing and changing. So mom's going to work on her anxiety of letting you do more sleepovers. And then I also

Starting point is 00:07:41 want to work on something too, which is I'm getting a middle age and I'm getting a little bit of a belly and I haven't had as much discipline as I should. What's getting more important to me as I get older is just my health. So you and I are going to work on some things together. You're really good at sports. You're good at working out. So will you help me? Will you put together a little exercise regimen? There's some things that we can do outside together in that little obstacle course, something we can do where I can start working on my own self-control and self-discipline to get healthier. And I've got a few ideas for you when you start to get upset. Look, I'm not expecting you to be perfect.

Starting point is 00:08:20 I think you should be disappointed and upset. That's perfectly normal. What I want to help you with is to get to where you don't get so upset that you're beating yourself up and that you feel bad about yourself when you're doing it. Being frustrated and disappointed is pretty normal. So what I'm looking for in myself is progress. Look, I'm not going to be some chiseled, ripped dude in three weeks. Not going to happen. But if I can start to see a little bit of progress in how

Starting point is 00:08:51 I look and how I feel, that'll give me confidence. And I think the same thing's going to happen for you. So we're willing to give you more sleepovers, but we just need to see progress in this particular area. And I'm going to tie it to, I need to see progress in myself. So how do you want to make that happen? And I would brainstorm and use what your child's natural gifts are. If they're really good at doing physical stuff, let them do physical stuff. Maybe it's doing physical things for the neighbor. Maybe it's that you have, you know, those things at the gym those uh like two ropes and you've got to like alternate them with your arms and your arms feel like jelly after like 15 seconds well who says you can't tie those up outside or to a tree and when a child's starting to get upset

Starting point is 00:09:37 you start to do that or a child is disappointed and dad goes outside and starts doing that you do something physical to work off some of that frustration. But the main part of this podcast that I wanted to hopefully instill in you is to get inside the head of your child and to acknowledge what's important to them, acknowledge their frustration, but do it with some intensity of, of course, you're frustrated because you want to be with your friends and that's a good

Starting point is 00:10:05 thing. And so I want to give you tools so that you can get what you want. I'm willing to work on myself. What could you do? Because I've noticed you're really good in these different areas. And so it doesn't make it feel like, well, you know what? The reason that you don't get to do X and Y is because of your own behavior. Well, that's not motivating. You know what? The reason that you don't get to do X and Y is because of your own behavior. Well, that's not motivating. You know what happens when a child starts to sense that? Fine. You know what? I'm just going to melt down every time. I don't care anymore because no matter what I do, I'm never going to get what I want anyway because you guys don't like me and I'm not good at anything and I'm just stupid. So why even try anymore? Right? You'll hear that in your kids. I want to build some confidence and give them tools so they don't feel helpless to change. I hope that makes sense.

Starting point is 00:10:52 I want you to work on that this week. Let's make some small progress this week. If a child's going, when he's getting upset, going to like 8.5 to 10, right? You're not going down to zero or two, but if we can get that child to go to 6.5, well, now he's not hurting himself or anybody else. Now, instead of a 17-minute meltdown, maybe we got it down to 12 minutes, or after 10 minutes, he went outside, he did something physical with you, right? Let's work on progress, not perfection. See if we can make some progress in that this week. I'm keeping it short so you can focus on this. Intensity, acknowledgement, lead them, lead them, and understand what's going on inside their hearts. If we can help you, reach out to Casey, our son, C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com. Tell us about your family,

Starting point is 00:11:42 what you're struggling with. Take advantage. We have a huge sale going on now you get 35 hours worth of practical insight if you get everything we have you get all of this and we walk you through specific action steps how to do this and we'd love to help you with that so thank you for listening thanks for sharing and we'll talk soon bye

Calm Parenting Podcast - When Kids Rage & Feel Helpless

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