Calm Parenting Podcast - Why Kids Say No: 10 Ways To Stop It

Episode Date: October 12, 2020

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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've got a child who reflexively says no just about any time you ask this child to do something, even if it's something simple. And so it's frustrating. We get emails every day. Got a five and a half year old daughter. She always says no. She resists everything we ask her to do. She's dominating our life. And it's so funny slash interesting to hear that because we were the same way with Casey, felt the same way, overwhelmed. And when you think about it, it's like, okay, there are two grown

adults here who are getting dominated, whose life is being run by a five and a half year old. And then the next email is going to be, hey, we've got a teenager. He's always been difficult. He's got an iron will and he's dominating our family life, right? So how do we stop that and reverse that? And how do we get them to stop resisting so much? And my answer may surprise you, but if you continue to do it the normal way, right, that we're doing it, two things will happen. One is it won't work anyway. It won't work. It's just not gonna work. And in the process of trying to just change this child

and bend them to your will, you will absolutely ruin your relationship with the child and it will make things immeasurably worse. So I wanna show you a different way to deal with this and give you some insight into why they are like that. And actually, the theme for me in my mind as I was thinking about this is why they must resist. It's part of who they are, and it's actually a naturally good part of the process. So that's what we're going to talk about today on the Calm Parenting Podcast. So welcome.

This is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm, and you can find us at CelebrateCalm.com. Please share this with other parents because we know there are other people who are struggling and you may help someone. If you need help, contact our strong-willed son who dominated our life when he was little, who was everything. Look, every email that we get, his email address is Casey, C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com. He will provide the best customer service on the planet. He will listen to you, find out what you're struggling with. He can recommend the right resources. He can help you with your budget. It is awesome what he does. But part of what's awesome is when we get emails,

we can all relate to them. Casey relates to them in the sense of like, yep, I was pretty much your daughter. Yep, that was pretty much me when I was in middle school. And so he can provide some perspective and you get to see, okay, here's a kid who is extremely challenging, difficult, so difficult that he inspired Celebrate Calm Exists because of Casey. And it's not really because of Casey. It is because of him, but it's because of the changes that occurred within us and our own transformation. And we're grateful to Casey because, look, I'm a different human being because of Casey. And so I'm very grateful to him that he brought up all of my immaturity

and exposed all the parenting lies and the little cliches that we all cling to. And he pretty much challenged everything, everything in my life I have now challenged and taken a different look at. And it's changed me as a human being. And so it's an awesome thing. So if you reach out to us, you're going to talk to Casey and he'll be able to help you and we'll help you as a family. So why do they resist? Let me go through a few things, some insights that hopefully will help you. What we are known for in all of our programs, we've got a huge fall clearance sale going on, but we're known for our strategies. Very, very practical. But today's going to be more about insights because to me, the insights are the more

important thing because if you get an insight to understand what's really going on inside your child's heart and brain, it changes how you see them. It changes how you interact with them and it stops you from misjudging their motives. And I will tell you as a strong-willed person myself, Casey, everybody around me knows, my wife knows this, my number one trigger in life is if you misunderstand or misjudge my motives. That is my biggest trigger. And so if you think that your child's just being defiant and disrespectful and they're just difficult all the time, it will lead you down one path and it will poison your interactions, your tone of voice, and what you're trying to get to with this child. But if you can have insight and to know exactly what's going on, oh, then it changes it to the positive. So this resistance is built into them.

It is part of their independence. It is a really good trait because they want to do things on their own. They want to figure it out themselves. They are stove touchers. They are different. And your kids are comfortable being different. Your kids many times are comfortable being odd, doing odd things. They sometimes prefer to do it the odd way. Here's the hard part. It's that you and I and society are uncomfortable with them being different, right? We get embarrassed by it. We think there's something wrong with them and we have a hard time with difference. We say that we're like, oh, we celebrate diversity in our society. No, we don't. We do not. We don't like people who are different. And your kids are different. And your kids are often comfortable with it, but you're not.

And so you're going to have to accept them on a deep, deep level. That's a large part of what we do in the No BS program is to cut through all the clutter and say, no, your child, there's nothing wrong with your child. And you need to accept them and release them to be the child they're supposed to be. So really interesting if you study that with your kids. You know what's related to that? Your kids aren't followers. They're just not followers, and they don't want to do everything that's popular. That's partly why, besides asynchronous development, it's partly why they struggle with friendships with kids their own age, because they don't want to join in. They're not, maybe our term is joiners. They're not joiners. They don't want to join in on what's popular. Why? Because why would I do that? Because if everybody else thinks it's really

interesting or cool, well, then all of a sudden, I don't. And that's an awesome quality. It's just a different kind of quality. And it makes you uncomfortable. So there's stove touchers. We talked about last podcast about the need for ownership. And this is huge.

Just got an email this morning. It's partly why I'm doing this. It from a mom who said, hey, I got the fall clearance. I got the downloads and I had it, your stuff running on my computer. I walked out of the room to do something. And when I came back, my child had come downstairs and he was listening. He was listening to what you're saying. When I walked back in the room, he said, mom, whoever this is, he's right. I don't like doing it your way and you need to listen to him.

Now, I can imagine the mom's like, who are you to talk to me like that and tell me what I'm supposed to listen to? But if you hear it, it is wisdom coming from a child and it resonates with them. And here's what he went on to say. I'd rather try it myself and fail rather than you look over my shoulder or you show me how to do it. And this mom stopped dead in her tracks and said, I never, ever, ever would have understood that about my child. I just thought

they were being difficult all the time. See, that moment just changed the course of this relationship. Because if mom and dad, the basic mindset is, well, just being difficult, so we need to change that. And why can't you just get along? Why can't you just listen to what we say? Because that would be so much easier. Well, that will poison the whole relationship for years, for maybe decades. Now she's starting to listen to her child and say, oh, it's not necessarily something negative, or his motives aren't bad in it. In fact, his motives are good in it. It's just his expression of how, right, he's a direct kid, like, you need to listen to this guy. Well, if you can get over, sorry, I didn't mean it saying like that, but get over your own stuff, right, of like, I

can't believe he talked to me like that. Stop taking everything personally, right? Be the confident adult. And that's partly why I want you listening. And I want your kids to listen. I look, put our stuff, when you get the downloads or the CDs, put them on and let your kids listen. If you're schooling from home, make it part of your curriculum and listen to your kids because this will resonate with them. They'll be like, yep, that's exactly why. And you know what else changes? Your kids begin to understand that there's nothing wrong with them, that there are advantages to this. Look, we want this quality. Everything we enjoy in life is created by someone who's not a follower, who says no at first, who resists the normal path. That iPhone that's in your hands,

whatever you're listening to this on, was created by someone who said, I don't care if you say no to me. In fact, I'll use that as fuel. Write that down. Embrace this quality about them and use it as fuel to overcome things and to fight things that are wrong in society and to come up with technological advancements. All those things, all the movies you like, all the music is created, most of it is created by people who don't want to do things the normal way and so they have breakthroughs and we need this quality. It's an awesome thing. So let your kids listen and let your kids teach you. In fact, you know what I would do? I get the downloads,

the CDs, either Calm Parenting Package or Get Everything Package. It's on massive sale right now. And if you already have it, let your kids listen and say, I want you to listen and I want you to teach me three things that I could be doing differently. Why not try that? Now, don't expect your kids to say it in really sweet ways. Well, mom, we know that you're a really good mom and you're doing your best, but it would really help if you would stop doing this. They probably won't say it that way. Mom, you know that guy's right. You talk way too much. And you lecture, dad, you need to stop yelling because you don't know how to control yourself. How do you expect us to control ourselves if you can't even control yourself, dad? That's probably how they'll

say it. And if you can take that as wisdom coming from the mouths of babes, even if they're 14 and have a bad attitude, you'll change and it will create trust with your kids and they'll see you change in front of them. That'll change your home very quickly. It'll change your relationship. And I probably haven't said this in a while, but relationships change behavior. Policies, rules, consequences don't change behavior. They don't change the heart. Relationships though, soften things, change the attitude. So so second thing when kids say no reflexively it is partly this it's kind of an instinct it's a tool that enables them to buy time and I know this because I'm 54 and I still do that in my personal life with my group of family

and friends and other people, when they ask me to do something or say something new, my initial instinct is, no, I don't want to do that. And partly it's buying time. Partly when your kids do it, it's to process your request and to determine if there's a better way or a different way to do it. Now, I know that's going to irritate you because you're the authority figure and you just want them to do what you say because you know what's best. And I get that. And we're going to get to that in a few minutes. But partly it is a, no, it's to push back a little bit. It's to create space so they can think about it and process it because many of your kids are slower processors of information

and you have to understand that because that will impact their schooling and how they do schoolwork. They're slower processors, but they're deeper processors and realize that the no is necessary for many of them at this point in their lives. Now, later on, they'll be able to say, you know what, I need a few minutes to think about that. But if they said that now, you're like, there's nothing to think

about because I just told you to do it and I'm the authority. I get that. I get that. Just chill a little bit. Number three, think about this. So you ask your child to do something simple and they refuse. And they refuse so much that they willingly accept a harsh consequence. Think about that. Just think about this. So you ask them to do something simple, and yet they refuse, knowing full well that they're going to accept a really harsh consequence. Now, what does that show you? It shows you how much they hate you standing over them, watching over them, do things, and how important it is to give them space because they would rather take the harsh consequence than simply do what you told them to do while you're standing over watching them. Does that make sense? So you've

got to flip things around a little bit because we'll say realistically, well, why? It's not that difficult. Like, why don't you just do that? And so next time, step back and think like, okay, so they're choosing. See, what you choose is less. What's the right way to say this? What they choose is less burdensome to them than just simply doing what you asked, which means there's something to that. It's really interesting insight. Number four, your kids don't want you to see their failure. They don't want you to see it because they may not trust how you handle things. And you may lecture too much. You might, well, just do it this way.

Let me show you how to do it. Remember? So you've got to give them space because they're stove touchers and they want to figure it out on their own. And it's awesome because that makes them independent life. Number five, give your kids even greater responsibility. Now, I know that sounds kind of stupid because your kids may not even do the simple things that you ask them to do. Like you can't even put your shoes on or brush your teeth without a fight. But I want you to switch it up and give them responsibility for an adult or grown-up type job and just see how they respond. Raise your bar. Raise the expectation. Raise your belief in them. Our kids are often awesome at doing adult and grown-up things. They just don't care about the kid things.

Boring. Stupid. Simple. I don't want to do it. Too easy. So switch that around. I know it's counterintuitive, but entire Celebrate Calm is based on counterintuitive. Quickest way to change your child's behavior is to first control your own. How does that work? Well, it works beautifully. It's just counterintuitive. So just try it sometime because our kids, part of why they resist and say no is they love a challenge. Many of your kids, when they're buying time, that's why they procrastinate. They like the challenge. Well, let me wait and then I've got a shorter period of time in which to get it done and that compresses time and it creates challenge, and it creates an adrenaline rush, and the adrenaline rush brings blood flow to my brain because I'm lacking a little bit of blood flow. My brain's understimulated, so if I compress time, awesome insight for doing schoolwork, when I compress time, it actually helps me think better. You've got to understand how your kids'

brains work. And when you do, you can use all of these things to your advantage, right? So we get off this, number six, we get off this Zoom call the other night. We've got this conference call, conference we did with a small school in Eastern Texas. And so we're doing some live Q&A, which is kind of cool, because we miss that face-to-face kind of interaction with human beings. And we're going back on the road, by the way. We're going to be in Ohio and Indianapolis later in October. And so we're booking live events. And by the way, if you book a live event and something happens with COVID or a tornado comes and we cancel. Well, you get your refund. Like we don't keep your money for it.

We reschedule. We work it out. So it's kind of no risk. So if you're interested in booking us, coming to your church, your school, your conference, whatever it is, reach out to Casey because we love that. So first question after I do this hour and a half complete talking to mom and dad, great mom and dad from Texas. They're like, well, we've got a question for you because we're trying to teach our daughter to say yes, ma'am and yes, sir. And so she's not doing it.

She's resisting. What should we do? Well, so I said, well, you've got two options. First option is to say, hey, this is the way we roll in our home. This is the expectation that we're going to say yes, ma'am and yes, sir. And if you will not do that and you will not show us that respect well then when you ask us to do something we will not do what you want us to do because that's just how life works and so have at it and there's nothing wrong with that approach in fact it's a perfectly fine approach but judging

in that moment talking to these parents I said you know my gut tells me that's not going to work she doesn't care and it hit me because sometimes I get little thoughts in my brain I said I looked at them on the screen I said I bet from what I understand of your daughter I bet that she will say to you mom yes sir to mom and yes ma'am to dad just to irritate you and the parents both nodded and started smiling. I said, exactly. That's the kind of daughter you have. That's the way they are. And I said, I guarantee you this as well. If you're typical tough Texas parents, right? And you want to go outside and get the switch or whatever and go old school. I said,

not going to work with her because she'll pull down her pants, bend over and let you whack her and everything. And I said, it won't work. She'll just, she'll just taunt you. Right. Cause this nice guy, he was really nice guy, but he's a big bald dude. And I was like, she will taunt you. And she'll start calling you baldy or something right in the middle of it. And they were like, yep, did that when she was three. That's so the typical things with these kids backfire, it doesn't work. And so I said, my gut tells me this. She doesn't want to say yes, ma'am. And yes, sir, because you were focusing on it too much and you want it too badly. Like you need her to say it. And when your kids sense that you really need it

and you want it so badly and you're focused too intently on it because every single interaction becomes, honey, say it's yes, ma'am, or yes, sir. Honey, it's not that hard. Just yes, ma'am, right? And when you get so focused on it, then it's kind of like it creates this pressure, and they're under pressure, and you're forcing them to do it. So you're forcing the respect. It's like our example we use of making a child apologize, right? And then they're like, sorry. And you're like, okay, they apologize. No, they didn't. You just forced them. See, I want contrition and humility leads to contrition. And so I encouraged the parents. I was like, step back. What do you really want? You want to raise a daughter who is respectful to other people, right? And you don't want to be embarrassed in front of other people. And so they said, I said, I guarantee you she's

respectful to other people. And they're like, yeah, she's awesome for other people, just not us. And I was like, well, welcome to the club. That's how it works. But partly what we want is we want a child who's respectful. And if you will broaden your box, make your box a little bit and start to look for it, you will find she is respectful in a number of different ways in your home. She just won't, she doesn't want to say those words. And I promise you moms and dads, sometimes when you step back and you stop focusing on it, it releases the child to do what's right when you're not demanding it. That's actually really good. Hold on just a second.

Releases child to do what's right when you're not demanding it. I'm going to add that to the newsletter because we send out a free newsletter, two of them every week. And this one, I'm going to have a recap of this in writing so you can kind of have it and you can print it out or you can just cut and paste it to yourself to remind you to stop being a freak

when your kids are doing this stuff, right? So you release your child to do what's right when you step away, when you give them some space and you don't demand it. Number seven, here's another email that we get. And in that email, the mom was like, she's putting a strain on our marriage. Yeah, these kids are going to strain your marriage. Good.

Use it as an opportunity to learn new relationship skills. Do it. Stop fighting it. Well, we're just going to try to wrestle through it. No, your relationship with your spouse is going to be ruined over this. And it's not the child's fault. And I don't want you to get divorced because then the kid's going to take it in like, well, it's just really difficult and it drove my parents apart.

No, it didn't. No, it didn't. Kids can't drive you apart. You're the grown adult. And I will tell you, Casey changed us so much. He changed everything about us. And it led me to be a new person, mature, grounded, content, work on that. I mentioned this on the last podcast, and I'll do it again because we got a really good

response to it of a lot of parents saying, yeah, we've been putting off working on our marriage, but we know it's strained. Yeah. And then guess what happens when you don't work on it? It gets worse. It doesn't stay even. The years build up. The resentments build up. You draw further apart. Why do you think back in the pre-COVID days when families had more than one child, there'd be dad would take one child to a sporting event and mom would take her other child to another sporting event and then they'd spend the weekend apart. That way they never really had to spend time together, right? And sometimes that saves your marriage, but that's not healthy. And so I want you to learn how to do this and dig in. And that's part of the get everything package. Casey can help you

out with that. I don't know what to say except that working on your marriage is hard work, but when you learn relationship skills and look, you know what I do in it, and in all of our stuff, especially for men, I make it really simple, right? I'm not trying to turn men into like some like, well, you don't have to be a touchy-feely, some person that you're not. I give you very practical tools so that you know exactly what to say to your wife, right? Instead of just sabotaging it all the time by dismissing her feelings and emotions simple things I teach you how to do and then you can just do it and then you start doing it because I learned from my own inadequacy in this area because I didn't know what to do and I learned from the

ground up of like oh so when I just sit and listen and acknowledge my wife's feelings and stop proving my point and and I take the pressure off of myself to fix everything, she just appreciates that, and when I compliment her on something, and I don't point out everything that's wrong, and when I share sometimes what I'm struggling with, she really, really feels closer to me, okay, I can do that, I can do that. And so anyway, you can do that. That's the point. I'm not special. This is not my nature. I had to learn this and you can learn it.

And I promise you, when you get to the end of your life, the only thing that's really gonna matter to you, not the end of your life, to the middle of your life, because I'm in the middle, 54. The only thing that's really matters is relationships. It's the only thing that matters. Your relationships with your spouse, with your kids, with your family, with your friends, with yourself. So use here, I'm going to close up with these. I want you to use these phrases this week.

You know what? I wish I was more like you because I admire these qualities in you. They're going to serve you well in the adult world. See, affirm the positive. I wish I was more like you. I wish I was a little bit more independent. I wish I wasn't such a follower. I wish I was willing to be a stove toucher. I wish I took more risks like you. I wish I was as curious as you. I admire these qualities. I admire the fact that you push at times when you want something. See, I wish I was more like that because it's a great quality to have in the real world. Affirm them because up until now, it's been like, why do you have to be like this? Why do you have to make everything so difficult, right?

And that doesn't help. So let me encourage you to think about this too. Oh, by the way, quick little note. So we get these emails all the time. Why did God give me this child? And you know what my first instinct, besides understanding the way, quick little note. So we get these emails all the time. Why did God give me this child? And you know what my first instinct, besides understanding the question, my first instinct is, but don't you think your child would be writing and saying, listen, I'm trying to figure out why did God give me these parents?

Because they don't understand me. They lecture. They yell at me all the time. All they focus on is the negative. It's just straining. It's just stressing me out as a child, right? Don't you think the child would have the same questions? Like, what was he doing?

Like, I clearly needed some different parents because I'm controlling them. And they're all getting fights. And I'm controlling the whole family life. Like, couldn't you switch it around? Yes, of course you could. Because we're supposed to grow up with relationships, right? So embrace this. Don't take it personally.

Give them perspective. Lead. Draw them. Don't push them. Create challenges and wins. Create successes and affirm them. Let me give you a kind of a final thought here. I want you to embrace this strong will to your advantage.

I want you to embrace this strong will to your advantage. I want you to embrace it because when I finally embraced this, Casey actually became more helpful and cooperative. And I got him to actually do more than was expected. And we can show you how to do that. These kids are capable of so much more, but as long as you're like, you know what, if you just apply yourself, you're capable of so much more and you don't do this right. That doesn't work. It's not motivating. And think about this. At work, would you want your boss, because there's this divide here of like, well, I'm the authority figure. They just need to be obedient to me. I was like, okay, is that your view of an authority figure, right? Which one do you prefer, Stalin or Mussolini, right? Because that's not my view of an authority figure. Authority figure to me is the leader who humbly serves and leads and who builds

trust and who's patient with me. But think about this. At work, do you want your boss just to come into your office or cubicle or email you, Zoom you from home and say, here are your tasks that need to be done today. Get them done and report back to me when they're done. Okay, that's fine. Or would you prefer that the boss lay out the company's vision and the larger objective and then say, look, you know what the objective is. I'm going to give you space because you have some gifts, talents, and passions that are different from me. You are going to approach this business situation in a different way. And I want to get your thoughts on it. And I want, here's the outcome that I'm looking for. Here's the objective, but I'm going to give you some space to do it differently and to use your particular gifts. Which company, which boss do you want? Right? Now now some of you want to be just to be told what to

do because that's your wiring you're like I'm just great I don't really need to think just give me some tasks and I'm very task oriented and I'll get it done and I'll be happy and it'll give me a pat on the head and it's awesome that's the way you're made but that is not the way these kids are made and it's not the way many of us are made and we would rather have our boss say hey here's what I'm going for here's what needs to happen why don't you use your natural gifts and talents and your creativity and why don't you come up with a different way of doing this and when you do it that way it works that way in companies it works that way in homes you will get far more out of that employee and far more

out of that child because you're not just saying rigidly, you need to do this, this, and this right now the exact way I said to you to do it. That's not training them. That's not really training them for the adult world, right? If I promise you, if you learn to do this, right, do you just want an obedient child or do you want a child who goes above and beyond because you gave them space to do things and you step back and you use this to your advantage? Casey, after we figured this out, Casey still was challenging at times, but we focused and used that energy of his, and he actually exceeded expectations. It's just that he did things differently than we would have asked him to do it. It is a really cool thing how this works. So I encourage you to do this. If you need help, reach out to us, Casey, C-A-S-E-Y, at celebratecalm.com. We have the fall clearance sale. The Get Everything package is 70% off. It contains

everything. We have 30 hours of very practical strategies. And remember that email last week from that guy. He's like, you're underselling this. You have so many ideas and strategies. It is filled with it, and it's changing our home. So I encourage you to take advantage of that. If we can help you, let us know. Thanks for listening. Please share this and I'm keeping it under 30 minutes. So that's why I'm talking really quickly. Love you all. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye.