Calm Parenting Podcast - When Kids Refuse To Go, Lash Out & Don’t Like Your Rules

Episode Date: June 1, 2021

When Kids Refuse To Go, Lash Out & Don’t Like Your RulesYour teenage daughter is mad because you won’t let her text late at night or go to a party. Your anxious son is screaming at you and refuses to go to an extracurricular. The battle lines are drawn. Kirk gives you a specific script and action steps to solve this battle. FREE SHIPPING this week when you purchase the Get Everything Package. Get Personal Mentoring with Kirk Over the Phone.Kirk will work with you individually or with you and your spouse to get you on the same page and help with your toughest parenting challenges you haven’t been able to solve.  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 you're locked in a battle with a strong-willed child and you think they're being defiant. You've got a teenage daughter and you've said no, you can't stay up late and text your friends on school nights and or you've told her no, you can't go to that party. Or maybe you have a younger child, you're trying to get that child to his taekwondo class or an extracurricular but he doesn't want to go. And you said, oh yeah, well, you are going to go. And he responds, oh yeah, you're stupid. And I hate you. And you can't make me. What do you do

in that moment? Because I guarantee you're looking at this child and you're thinking, this is a defiant, disrespectful child. And what I want you to know is you're not even fighting over the same thing. So that's what we're going to talk about today on this episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast. This is going to be good. I'm really excited about it. So thank you for joining us. My name is Kirk Martin. I'm founder of Celebrate Calm.

You can find us at CelebrateCalm.com. Feel free to share our podcast. Please share it with other parents because this is hard stuff that we get into. But it will change you as a person, which makes it awesome because we're about generational change, breaking generational patterns so our kids don't have to grow up and battle the same kind of anxiety and control issues that many of us have. So if you need help, contact our strong-willed son who was really, really good at fighting. He would never give in. He would go to the mat on things, right?

And your kids are like this. You pull out the harshest consequence possible and they up the game. You know what? No video games for two weeks. And your child's like, let's just make it a month, right? So that's who we're dealing with. And if you contact our son, Casey, that's who you're dealing with as well. But he won't fight you because you're not his parents. And he's an awesome young man. So his name's Casey, C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com. You know the drill. If you need help, email us. Tell us about your family, age of the kids. What are you struggling with? We will provide some very practical, specific tips, strategies, insights for you. If you need help with our resources, two ways to handle it. One, go on the website at CelebrateCalm.com. We have a big sale going on at summertime. It's Father's Day is coming up.

I encourage you to dig into our materials because it's a lot of very, very practical stuff that I can't get to in the podcast. Or email Casey, tell him about your family, and he will recommend resources and even do it within your budget. So here's where we are, okay? I want to work on a very specific relationship skill that will de-escalate situations and lead to problem solving. I'm going to do three examples. Number one, you've got a teenage daughter and she wants to stay up late texting her friends

or she wants to go to a party and you're resisting because you have obvious reasons, right? Her health and safety, she needs to sleep. And so she begins to lash out because you're not giving in. And she says, you can't tell me what to do. You're stupid. I'm going to do whatever I want. And you're obviously outraged, right? Who does she think she is? I'm the authority figure in this home. She doesn't get to talk to me like that. Remember parents, don't take things so personally. Don't take it so personally and don't fall back into the authority figure thing of like, well, that means I just get to boss people around.

I have no problem being the authority figure to my son. No problem at all. But I don't lord that over him. I don't walk around like, oh, I'm the authority figure. No, in the way that we think the authority figure is the servant, it's the leader, it's the one who models behavior, it's the one who de-escalates, it's the one who is more mature, right? And we, how many times do we, right, based on our, many of us, our religious tradition or growing up, it's like, well, then we're just the authority figure. I'm like, okay, good authority figure doesn't lose it all the time and use fear and intimidation. If that's your idea of an authority figure, well, then of course, you're going to model that to your kids. But I don't think that's who you want to be your

authority figure, right? I think my best authority figures have been people who were able to give me wisdom and perspective, who calm things down, right? Who were able to say no to me, but didn't make it personal. And they didn't take it personally, right? They were able to teach me because discipline, remember, means literally to teach. So you're looking at this child, this teenage daughter, teenage son, it doesn't matter the age. And you think that you're dealing with a defiant, disrespectful young lady, but you're not. You're not even fighting about what you think you are. You are now dealing, see, you think you're dealing with a teenage girl who's always been difficult.

She's strong-willed. She never takes no for an answer. She can't follow directions. And she always has to have her own way. And that's not what's going on. You're dealing with a teenage girl who is afraid that she's going to be isolated socially. And that is everything. The social thing to teens is everything.

See, you think she's like, well, she's not listening to us as the authority figure. Well, the truth is you're not listening to her either. Because if you read into it sometimes, why does she want to stay up late texting her friends? Because all the other parents aren't that awesome and they let their kids do it, right? And you're battling that. And so she feels left out of the text stream.

She missed out on those TikTok videos that were getting sent around at midnight because you're a good parent. And she feels left out, right? Where she wants to go to that party that everybody else is going to, right? And she doesn't want to feel left out. And so you are talking past each other. So I encourage you in this situation, do this. Number one, get out of the house with your daughter sometime. Change the environment. When I have a difficult discussion with a human being, and this is with my son, I didn't want to go toe-to-toe with him where the environment was kind of tense or toxic. So change the environment, right? Go out somewhere, take her out, go out and grab

some pizza, go get something healthy, a smoothie shop, whatever she's into. If you can, go for a walk, walk the dogs, but change the environment. And then I want to do something that will irritate you. Second step, I want you to apologize to your daughter. And you're like, wait, what? You want me to apologize to this defiant teenager who's yelling, calling me names and refusing to do what I ask? And my answer is, absolutely. Absolutely. Here's what it sounds like. Melissa, I want to apologize. I've been so busy trying to prove my point that I haven't really heard you. Let me repeat that again. Honey, I want to apologize to you. I've been so busy trying to prove my point, trying to get you to listen to me, that I haven't really listened to you. And I want to apologize for that. I promise you if you do that, you will see her

body posture and her tone change because humility is a powerful, powerful tool. You want to talk about being a good authority figure. You lead with humility as an authority figure, people will follow you because they respect you, not because they fear you. And I don't want my kids or other people in my life making decisions around me out of fear. Watch guys, for men out there, watch how we do this in subtle ways. And I know this because I did all these things. We often make things very uncomfortable for our wife or our kids. They ask us to take them somewhere. There's a lot of traffic here. And we grumble about stuff.

And it's a manipulative tool that we use because we grumble and we do that to make it so uncomfortable that our wife, our kids will not come to us and ask us to do things or ask for help because we make it at times so unpleasant. So watch that because I want your wife, I want your kids, I want your spouse coming to you and I want you to be a full partner in all of this. So watch this humility thing

is powerful and you have just modeled for your daughter what you have been trying to get her to do her whole life, which is apologize when she's wrong, right? You've not accepted her position. You have not agreed with her that she is right. Not at all. You've simply stated the truth, which is that you've been so busy trying to prove your point that you haven't really heard what's important to her. So the third step is to state that now. But Connie, if I'm really hearing you correctly, what you're concerned about, what you fear is that if you don't get to text late, if you don't get to go to this party, you're going to be isolated from your friends, perhaps even shamed by them for some reason. Is that right? And let her

talk a little bit. Acknowledge how that makes her feel. Honey, I can see how that would be upsetting and hurtful to you. You haven't agreed with her decision. Just that her fear, her concern is legitimate and valid and real. And I will tell you in human relationships, that's huge. It's one of the fundamental things that we all want is to be heard. We don't have to, look, I don't need to be always agreed with, but I want you to know what I'm really talking about because that's important to me. So let her vent and simply listen because that provides clarity. And now she's much more likely to hear you because you have heard her. And now you're in a position where the tension is gone and you can problem solve because now you understand what this is really about.

I want you to try that this week. I want you to try that for the rest of your life. Do that with everybody that you come into contact with. If you really want to change your life, do that with someone you disagree with over a political topic or a religious topic because I guarantee you, and I'm not going to do a big thing on this, I guarantee you, you don't fully understand what that other person really

thinks or believes or what is the motive of that person's heart. And this happens with our kids all the time, all the time. We think, well, she's not trying. Well, no, she's probably overwhelmed, right? That leads me to my second one. Most of the fights, most of the battles that we have with our kids, we don't really understand what's going on. So you've got kids, many of you have kids who struggle with anxiety, right? They've got these very, very busy brains. And so they like routines. They like everything to be kind of the same. That's why they wear the same clothes, eat the same food all the time. They have to prove that they're right. It's why they cheat at games. You can't play a board game. They're going to cheat, change the rules of the game. They're going to quit. All these things create order in their lives. So we come along and say, hey,

do you want to take Taekwondo class? And at first it's like, sure, sign me up. But the night we come home, we say, hey, we've got to roll. We've got to go now all of a sudden inside. Here's what gets triggered anxiety because now I've got to go to that new place and there might be an adult there That's not really patient with me because of my life experience teachers and other adults aren't always patient with me because I have a lot of energy and I don't always follow directions well and I really struggle connecting with other kids my own age because I have something called asynchronous development. They're not going to say that, but this is what they know. Because I get along better with older kids and adults and little kids with animals, but kids my own age, I struggle to connect with. And so what if I get picked on? What if kids make fun of me? What if when I walk

into that taekwondo place, everybody has friends and they're talking and I kind of feel left out and I'm not always good at doing sequential kind of things because I'm more of a visual learner and I'm a thematic learner. And what if I'm not good at Taekwondo and I want to quit and dad is going to call me a quitter and he's going to be upset. I'm not going. Right. And so you look at that child and you're trying to get that child in the car and he's saying, you're stupid. I hate you. You can't make me go. And immediately your first thought is, I'm dealing with a defiant child who is challenging my authority. And what I want you to know is that is absolutely not true. It looks like it and it sounds like it. Absolutely. But this is why it's so important to learn how to calm down and de-escalate and control yourself.

Because if you don't, you will step right into that mess. You know what, young man? You're going to get your little butt in the car right now or else we're not. And then it escalates and we end up saying hurtful things. I don't know why you have to make everything so difficult. Your brother never gives us... Right? You start going down that lane because that's what

I did. Now you're looking at severe, severe issues in your home, all because you misread the situation. There's no guilt or no blame. That's why you're listening to this podcast. That's why I want you listening to the materials, especially, look, listen to, get everything, listen to them all. But listen, Strong Willed Child won the ADHD University of Learning. Their brains are different than yours. And they're doing things in different ways that you don't always understand. And you have to understand why they're doing it. Because otherwise, you're just looking at this defiant little snot who makes your life difficult. And you may even say that. And then you're going to compare them to their sibling and you think that's going to work out well, Cain and Abel. It doesn't.

What you're really looking at is an anxious child. And what this whole scene is about has nothing to do with them following directions or your authority or anything else. It has to do with you're looking at a scared kid, right? So picture this. If I'm looking at a defiant, rebellious child, that's going to take me one place. But if I'm looking at a scared kid who's nervous, that takes me in a completely different way. And if you mix those two up, you're in for a fight for the rest of the night and to be

honest, the rest of their childhood. Because if you do this too many times, they're eventually going to say, you don't understand. I keep getting in trouble because my stomach's upset because I've got a lot of anxiety. I didn't like choose the anxiety. I don't like my stomach being upset. So I always eat simple carbs and always have to I don't like my stomach being upset. So I always eat simple carbs and always have to eat comfort food because my stomach's upset and I like salty things, right? Your kids don't choose that. It's just the way they are. And so now I can look at that child and say, oh, so I'm not dealing with a defiant child right now. I've got an anxious little kid or an anxious big kid. Some of you have, look,

some of you have teenagers. I'll throw this in as a bonus. Get in their junior year, sabotage their grades. Stop doing their schoolwork. Don't take the SATs or the ACTs. Why? Because they're too nervous to go away to a big college and they're afraid to tell you because they don't want to disappoint you and they don't want the long lecture so they sabotage their junior or senior year so that they can't go away to college. It's an anxiety issue, right? So you look down and say, hey is your stomach a little bit upset? Because that's usually where anxiety lives. Of course it is. Because, look, some going to new places is a little scary. So of course you're a little bit nervous about it. See, I love that language,

of course. You're normalizing it. There's absolutely nothing wrong with anxiety. Anxiety is a tool that we use, our body uses, to alert us to the fact that something's new and maybe out of place and scary. Now we don't want to be limited by it and we don't want it to ruin our lives, and we don't want it to hold us back, but it's perfectly normal. That's why I always caution about doing way too much therapy for anxiety. Now, if it's depression and it's really severe, by all means, get some help, but sending a child into a therapist, and by the way, my wife is a therapist, so it's not that we're against therapy, but sometimes we create these things that don't need to be, we make them bigger than they need to be. Right?

And so I can normalize it. Of course, of course, taking that test makes you a little bit anxious. Getting your driver's license, of course you're going to be a little bit nervous. Don't dismiss it. Oh, there's nothing to be afraid of. Sure there is. So why are you dismissing it? Because watch the other insidious thing that happens when we dismiss things. It's another really good guy thing that you just learn when you're a man is to dismiss your wife's feelings and other people's feelings because I'll speak for me as a man. I haven't always been that great at handling other people's emotions

because it makes me uncomfortable and I think I need to fix it. And when I finally grew up, I learned I don't have to fix anybody's emotions. And I can be completely comfortable with the fact that you can have whatever emotion you want. It's not my job to fix it. All my job is, is to listen to you, right? And to comfort you. But I don't have to fix it, right? And so I normalize it. So of course you're nervous about it. Do you know how settling it is when an adult looks at a teenager, a young child, and gives them wisdom about the real issue? Oh, there's nothing wrong with you, son.

It's perfectly normal. You should be a little bit nervous. And see, once I calm them down, now I can go to the problem solving, which is, in this case, I can go to the problem solving, which is, in this case, I always like to go a few days ahead of time to Taekwondo place, meet the Taekwondo teacher and say, hey, my son is awesome at helping other people. Doesn't really help me at home, but he's awesome at other places. You don't say that. You just think it, right? But he's awesome at

helping. Can you give him a job to do? If that Taekwondo guy gives your child a job to do, he's more, your child's more likely to go to that place because they like helping other adults, right? So I want you to do that this week. Third, and this is a bonus one, it's a marriage, it's a relationship tip. And I dare you to say this to your spouse, to your fiance, if you're dating, whoever. I want to just try this one sentence, might be a couple sentences. I want to apologize because I haven't really heard you lately. Would you go for a walk with me? Because I really want to listen. Look, do it. I'm not going to belabor that. I don't care how hard it is for you to do. Walk into that kitchen one night. Men, you want to change your marriage?

Look, that's why people like our marriage program. Look, we have this thing called Calm Couples Marriage Program. It is worth $997. When we first launched it, that's what we sold it for, a thousand bucks. Why? Because it will absolutely change your relationships for the rest of your life, save your marriage, which saves divorce, which saves a lot of attorney's fees, and all kinds of pain and hurt. And the reason we structured it the way we did is so that it's very accessible for men. Because I know as a man, when I went to marriage therapy, it's very overwhelming. It feels like there are two people in that room teaming up on me as a guy. And I wanted men to feel comfortable with simple action steps because we don't know how to do this stuff. But to be able to say as a man, as a woman, to walk in and tell your wife tonight, and by the way, moms, if you're

listening to this, forward this to your husband. Say, look, this is a short little podcast. Will you listen? Because I think it could really help because you're a good dad and you're a good husband. But I know you want to be better and this will really help you out. It's a couple simple little things that you can just say to our daughter. You can say to me, go in and ask your wife, I want to apologize. I haven't really heard you lately. Will you go for a walk with me? Because I do want to listen. You'll be surprised how much that changes your marriage. It's not going to fix it all. It doesn't fix every situation. But when you humble yourself and you do that and you hear them, man, it changes a lot. And we're including that Calm

Couples program in our Get Everything Package, Calm Parenting Package. Ask Casey about it. You can see it on the website. This week, let's do that, okay? Let's do this. Let's really hear the people in our lives and get to the root of the real issue. Handle it with humility and I promise you will see such changes in your kids and you and you'll start to enjoy your kids again. You know what else? I'll make a bold claim. I believe that you will start to look forward at times to these situations. Why? Because there are big opportunities to build a closer, more trusting relationship with your child. When that teenage daughter finds that she has a mom or a dad who can actually handle her when she's all filled with teenage drama and you're the one parent in that whole parenting group who can say no, who can be

firm, who can have boundaries, but who also doesn't freak out and can handle and really get to the root of the teenage issues and what she's really struggling with, that is an awesome thing. And you will enjoy the teenage years. It's just going to take a little rebuilding, okay? And you can do that too. We can rebuild these things. So if we can help you, reach out to Casey, C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com. Let us know how we can help you. Love you all. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye.