Calm Parenting Podcast - When Plans Change: Kids Who Lose It When Disappointed

Episode Date: December 23, 2023

When Plans Change: Kids Who Lose It When Disappointed Do you have a child who loses it when plans change, when they face disappointment, during transitions? Most strong-willed and neurodivergent kids struggle with this. So in this special holiday episode when your schedule is going to be messed up, Kirk gives you practical tools to help kids when plans change. Our Christmas Clearance Sale ends Monday at Midnight! Take advantage of the Lowest Prices of the Year at https://celebratecalm.com/christmas-clearance Go to https://www.HelloFresh.com/calmfree and use code calmfree for FREE breakfast for life! One breakfast item per box while subscription is active. Get your kids something they will actually LOVE, use, and look forward to getting all throughout the coming year. Build your child’s confidence NOW! Visit https://crunchlabs.com/CALM and get your kids CrunchLabs today! A Revolutionary Baby Monitor is Born. Visit https://www.masimostork.com/ to learn more. 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. Do you have a child who loses it when plans change or when they face disappointment? I know you do because most strong-willed neurodivergent kids struggle with this. So as we head into Christmas and this holiday season in which your kid's schedule is going to be all out of whack, I wanted to give you some practical tools to help when plans change. And that's what we're going to discuss on this episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast. So welcome to Skirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. If you need help, reach out to

our son Casey, C-A-S-E-Y, at CelebrateCalm.com. Tell us the ages of your kids. What do they struggle with? We get together as a family. We discuss it. We email you back, usually pretty quickly, even on Christmas Day, because we know you're going to be around family and need extra help. And we'll give you practical tools. And I encourage you, download our programs right to your phone on the way to grandma's house. And by the way, if you get our programs, your spouse, your own parents can listen for free. So here's what's happening. Our kids tend to struggle with these changes and plans and disappointment is hard for them. Transitions they struggle with.

And it's partially because they have these very busy brains and it feels like their world is out of control. And that's why they try to control things as much as possible. Just like those of you who are like engineers, project managers and accountants, right? And our kids, they can be bossy. They try to cheat, change the rules of the game, or quit.

See, that's all about controlling the outcome of the game. Sometimes they like to line things up in a certain way. We talked about them hiding acorns in their pockets. It's things they have control of. Your kids also visualize things in their brains. They picture what they're going to do and then they lock on to that idea and they even get emotionally invested in it. And when that happens, causes a lot of blow-ups when they don't get to do what they wanted to do. And it literally feels like their world is falling apart, even if it's something insignificant or easy for you to navigate, because their inner world is falling apart, and so do they. So I want to cover two different examples. I'm going to try to do it pretty quickly, because it's Christmas time, so you can

work on this over the holidays. So here's the first question we got. Kirk, our huge hurdle is when plans change, and it's when our son gets this fixed mind, right? If someone's sick, or a plan changes, or like when he went to his granddad's house, and his baby cousin was there, so he couldn't play Legos on the floor, and he had to move to a different place, he totally loses control. And out comes anger, and sometimes destructiveness and then loss of any impulse control. So what do we do to help him? And my response is this is really common, even in me. I like order and structure. I don't like for things to change. It throws me off and I'm a grown adult. So kind of normalize this. There's nothing wrong with your kids, right? And in some ways,

there's nothing you can really do to prevent this or make it better quickly, but I think you can keep it from escalating too much. So why don't you try three things? And I try doing the following kind of quickly and succinctly. Number one, I acknowledge with some intensity that change stinks. Oh man, I hate when change happens. I hate it when things work out like that. Acknowledging is a way of saying, I'm taking it seriously. I get it. And your feelings aren't wrong. It's normal. It's more normal to be frustrated when things don't go as planned because that is normal. Then I want you to remove yourself pretty quickly and give your child space to process the disappointment without you being right there.

So you start walking away and you start addressing a possible solution or options, but I want you to keep this in an even matter-of-fact tone. I don't want you to try to convince your child that it's okay. Oh, honey, it's okay. You know what? You can play with your Legos in the other room. I don't like that tone. It sounds kind of condescending. And you don't like it when your spouse does it too. And don't try to convince them that they shouldn't be upset.

Just stay businesslike. So you acknowledge, oh man, I hate it when that happens. Listen, I've got to go upstairs. I've got to go help grandma. Here are a couple options for you to consider. And then see if giving their child some space instead of talking to him, which makes kids upset, see if that calms them down more quickly. Look, I would not talk in this baby tone.

A lot of people are doing that. Well, I know it's really hard, honey. That just sounds kind of condescending. And it sounds like you're trying to fix things sometimes. So I want to do this pretty quickly. Oh man, that stinks. I hate it when that happens. Listen, I've got to go help grandma. Here are a couple of ideas for you to think about and then walk away. Sometimes giving them some space and time to process without you standing over them trying to convince them that everything's okay and they shouldn't be upset. Sometimes that helps a lot. So try that. So here's the second example that I

wanted to do. And the word I want you to remember is context. Our kids are often very big picture thinkers. And part of the reason, this is a little bonus insight, when you tell them to do something, they say, why? It's not because they're always being defiant, disrespectful. If they could and they were mature enough, they'd say, hey, mom, dad, I heard what you told me to do. I know exactly what your expectations are. I wanted to know why you want that done because I may have a different way of doing it. And I like doing things

my own way because I'm a stove toucher and I like trying to figure things out. And your natural response as a parent is, I don't want you to really think, just do what I told you to do. But part of it is context because they want to know and try to figure out maybe there is a different way to do it. And to be honest, maybe there's an easier way to do it for them that isn't as hard as the other way. And sometimes they choose the harder way, right? But it's all about context. So let me set this up this way and I'll give you a very practical application. So let's say you've told your child all week long, like, hey, Saturday morning, it's going to be chill. We don't have any plans. You can get up,

you can get on your Legos, play video games, whatever you want to do. And your child is looking forward to it all week because the week is busy with school and homework and extracurriculars. So Saturday morning comes, your child's sitting on the floor building with Legos in their pajamas, and all of a sudden, dad or mom comes into the room and says, hey, you need to pick up your Legos, put your shoes on, we need to go. And your child is going to ask, why? And I have to be honest here, a lot of us take it like, well, why is he being disrespectful? He needs to get up right away.

No, he doesn't. That would be weird to me. It would be weird if you had a kid who all week long was looking forward to doing this, was emotionally invested in it. And then all of a sudden someone comes in the room and says, put up your Legos, pick up, put on your shoes and we've got to go. And they just did it. That would be weird to me. I don't want a kid who's like, I want a kid who knows how to think and who does question things sometimes. I think it's up to us to not take it so personally all the time. I can't believe that he questions me. Well, I can't believe that you're an adult that gets thrown off by that.

So, the nice Christmas message, isn't it? Grow up. So, but when he comes in and he asks that, that's a normal question so the child's going to say why and then if your dad like me you're going to say ours is not to question why ours but to do and die that's from the charge of the light brigade that was my dad's favorite quote my dad was a career military with four boys so then i'm going to yell and the child's going to be like dad what why i i was playing legos You told me because you know how they are. That sense of justice and fairness.

You told me all week long. And you can hear that in the voice, right? Then I was going to be able to play Legos. And now you're a liar, right? Now watch what happens. They start calling you a liar. And you take that personally. You know what?

You're not going to call me names. That's disrespectful. You know what? I'm going to take your Legos for the rest of the week. That works out really well. So this big back and forth goes on and it's ugly. So here's a different way to handle it. I'm going to go through my little script here and then I'll break it down why it's important. So imagine instead, I'll just do dad because I'm a dad and I like doing the dad voice. So dad comes into the room and says, oh man, Jacob, really cool Lego project you're building. Listen, plans changed. Your

grandma called, she's sick and I could use your help. Could you do me a favor, go in the pantry, grab some soup, put your shoes on. Look, if you want, pick up some of the Legos, put them in a bag. We're going to go to grandma's and help her out. But I promise when we get home this afternoon, we are going to have all afternoon long and you can sit and play with Legos and you know what, I'll build something with you too. Now, that took maybe an extra 25 seconds to say, here's why I like it I came in and the first thing I said was hey man really cool lego project you're working on instead of because that's what's important to the kid at the time it's just basic human communication I want when I come into a room

it's not all about me and what I want. And if you just come in barking orders, nobody's really going to listen to you. It's jarring. So the first thing that I do is I acknowledge where he is. You're having a good time building with your Legos and you're actually really good at that. Good. Then I say this, hey, listen, plans have changed. That gives your strong will child like half a second in his brain to adjust to the oh crap because he knows what's coming he's not going to get to play late with legos right now but you just set it up with hey listen plans have changed grandma's sick you don't have to go into all the things happening to grandma i just said grandma's sick. There's context. Now there's a reason why I'm getting

interrupted. Hey, I could really use your help. Now I gave an action step to the child, a mission to be involved. Instead of kind of being the, what would it be? Not the victim of this, but the being acted upon. Hey, you know the thing that you do that you love more than anything else? Cut it out right now. Put those Legos away. Put your shoes on and we're going to go to grandma's house. You don't like grandma's house because she smells like an old person, right? That's what it sounds like to our kids. And instead, when we come in and I make them a part of it, I said, man, I could really use your help. Could you grab a can of soup from the pantry? Throw your shoes on. We're going to go to grandma's. And then I answer the next question because you can see it welling up in his face and his eyes. But I want to play with

my Legos. When am I going to build with my Legos? And so I get that. Hey, we're going to be at grandma's. We'll be home this afternoon. We've got nothing else planned. And I promise you're going to get to be able to do it. Now, if you're just lying to your child, you're setting yourself up for a huge afternoon meltdown. So I'd rather be honest and just say, look, I'll help you pick up the Legos. Let's put them in a box in a bag and take them to grandma's and we can build there. Either way, here's what you've done. You've acknowledged where they are. You've given some context. You have helped them adjust in their brains. And you also answered that other question for them, which is, when am I going to get to do this again? I like that a lot. And I want you to start to try to do these things. A lot of these things,

I want you to practice doing. Even kind of rehearse them in your brains. It's part of listening to the podcast a lot is getting this in. Listening to our programs on your phone. It just gets the tone of voice inside of you. And it just makes it easier in these situations because you can recall it in the moment. At the very least, here's what I want you to do, even if you don't remember to do this over the holidays.

In these situations, here's a couple of other tools. Slow down. Just slow down. Slow down and think it through for just a minute. I'm going in here and I'm going to disrupt my child and pull him out of doing something that he really loves. How could I handle that in a different way? Do I walk in and do I sit down? It's like that example I've given when you pick your kids up from somewhere where they're having a great time.

You're like, okay, ready to go? Well, the answer is going to be no, because they're having the best time ever with their friends. They're never going to say like, you know, mom, I had such a great time. I'm just going to be grateful for the time that I did have. And I know that your time's really important and that you let me stay extra time. So I'm just going to get ready extra fast so we can go home. Again, that would be weird if kids said that. So anticipate this. Sometimes go back into your kid brain of what it was like before you became a

miserable adult. I'm kidding, but we become overly responsible and we're no longer childlike. And I'm not childish. You are childish when you have your own meltdowns, right? That's what we are. But be a little bit childlike and remember what it was like. We're so busy being overly responsible because I'm a parent. I've got to make sure that I drill into this kid every lesson in life that he's got to have. And even though he's seven or 14 and I'm 40, I'm going to try to jam in 40 years worth of wisdom into his head. Well, you didn't get that wisdom for 40 years. And so I want you to impart that. But the way that you impart that is very different with a strong willed child because you can't push

them. You can't force them. You've seen this. The more you try to push them, the more they resist. The best way it works is when you lead them and when you draw them to you. And it just takes a little different, actually it's a lot different approach, but you can master this. You can do this. And so if you need help, reach out to us. It's Casey, C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com. I was trying to get this done in less than 15 minutes because you're busy parents. Anyway, hey, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, Happy Life to all of you. And I hope you enjoy time with your family. If we can help you, just let us know. Love you all. Bye-bye.