Calm Parenting Podcast - Your Child Flips You Off-Tough Discipline & De-Escalating

Episode Date: June 8, 2021

Your Child Flips You Off-Tough Discipline & De-Escalating Kirk gives you three examples of tough, matter-of-fact discipline in the first three minutes. Then he shows you a different way to handle an overtly defiant child who says the inexcusable to you. A must listen and share. Our Father's Day Sale Begins NOW! You get the Calm Couples Marriage Mentoring Program FREE with your purchase of the Calm Parenting Package or the Get Everything Package. Make this your Father’s Day gift to yourself or tell your wife THIS is what you want. Want personal mentoring with Kirk via Phone? Click here to learn about mentoring packages. 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 let's just establish this right off the bat before we get to a really difficult situation. I like tough discipline. I like tough, firm, matter-of-fact actions that you take. Very few words. I like doing simply what I told my child I was going to do. I don't lecture a lot. I don't use a lot of words. I don't shame them. I just do what I told them I was going to do. I don't have a problem with being very firm and matter of fact and saying,

oh, that is not happening in my home. But I'm in complete control of myself. I'm not taking it personally. I'm not getting freaked out. What I add to that is, oh, yeah, that's not happening in my home. But here's what I could use your help with. Here's what you can do. Whenever I say no to inappropriate behavior, I like to say yes to appropriate behavior.

I have no problem with a mom saying, look, you've got three chores to do. I do three, I run three services in this home. A taxi service, a chef's service, and I do your laundry. So you do your three chores, I will feed you, take service, and I do your laundry. So you do your three chores. I will feed you, take you places, and do your laundry, right? And then I have no problem at all if the kids don't do their chores. I'll withhold one of those. And I don't mind withholding food sometimes. Your kids aren't going to die. Now again, use this with wisdom. We're not talking kids with diabetes or

some kind of health issue. I'm not going to withhold food for days at a time, but I'm not fixing every meal for a special meal for kids demanding things and isn't doing something that I have asked, right? There's nothing personal about that. I'm just saying, this is how I roll in my home. I don't need you. Look, when you get to the teen years, what I told Casey, our son, was, I don't expect that you will like the sound of my voice in the teenage years. And what I knew was I probably wouldn't like his voice either. But our teen years were awesome because we had worked on this a lot prior to that. But when he was a teenager, I didn't have a problem saying no because I don't need you to like me.

I don't need you to like me, right? I don't need you to be happy with me. I'm completely comfortable being the responsible adult who is your provider and your protector. And whether you're happy with me or not, right, doesn't change my decision because it's not about me. It's not about my own comfort. It's not about my control issues. It's not about my anxiety either. It is about what is best for my child. And I just carry that out in as dispassionate a way as possible. So that they know, oh, I can trust my mom.

I can trust my dad. Because when they tell me something, that's what they do. And there's not a lot of drama around that. So with that said, I want to go through a situation that's really, really difficult. And you're going to be stretched by it. You're going to be challenged by it a little bit. And that's what I want. So thank you for joining the Calm Parenting Podcast. This is Kirk Martin. I'm founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us at CelebrateCalm.com. If you need help, reach out to our strong-willed son,

and he can tell you all about how I parented, both before I was calm and in control of myself, and then afterwards. His name is Casey, C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com. You know the deal by now. Tell us about your family, your kids, kids' ages. What are you struggling with? We will reply back personally. This is not an organization or a company. It's a

family whose passion is helping you. And we take this all personally. I don't take things personally from my son when he's in a bad mood, but we do take it very personal personally when, when, when you reach out to us and we will reply back to you and try to help you. If you want our materials and you need some specific help, Casey will put together a specific package within your budget. And we get this all the time. Like, well, we didn't really believe it. And I get all these emails. I'm like, Casey's really awesome. I'm like, yeah, I know. He's like your kids. He's awesome for you. And he was horrible for us. You know, I'm kidding, but not really. That's the way it works, but that's what we're here for. So if we can help you, let us know. If you don't want to reach out, just go to the website. We've got

awesome summertime. We've got summer special father's day special. Um, whether you want to get the calm parenting package, get everything, which is my favorite thing. Cause it's everything for the price of like one visit to a therapist's office. But it's 35 hours of concrete practical strategies. Anyway, so here's what I wanted to talk about today. I already went through a little bit of tough discipline. Love it. So this is a real life story from a nice, normal, Midwestern family. So there's a mom and dad and two sons. And at dinner one night, the dad asked his more strong-willed son to do something. And the son says, no, I'm not going to do it. And so the father replies back and says, I don't know why you have to make everything difficult. Your brother never gives us any problems. To which the strong-willed child flipped his dad off and said,

You, dad. Now, how are you supposed to respond to that? Do you say, son, I love how you express your emotions. No, we're not going to say that. That's not what we're after, okay? We're also not going to just excuse it. We're going to deal with it. But what this dad did at first is what most of us, if we're honest, would do, which was laid into that kid about how difficult he is and you can't follow simple directions. And I asked

you to do simple things. How are you going to be successful in life? And then gave him the harsh consequence. Go to your room. You know what? All video games, all food done for the month. Because he's a man like me who gives consequences he can't keep, right? That's what we do. And so there are a lot of words exchanged, bad words exchanged. Although I will tell you as I'm thinking about it, that child dropping the F-bomb on his dad is not as harmful as the words that the father said to the son, okay? Now, separate, I don't care about the, I know it's the F-word, you don't say it to your parents, we're going to deal with that. But some of the hurtful words that we say as parents, look, even simple things out of a good heart, like, if you would just apply yourself, that is a brutal statement because the underlying

motive that we have or assumption about our child's motives is that they're not even trying. Now, sometimes they're not, but sometimes they are trying. They're just overwhelmed or they need tools, but most of the time, that phrase itself will engender a lot of anger for your strong-willed child. So we've got to separate what's really harmful here. So this is what the dad did. Laid into the son, sent him to his room, said all kinds of things about him and how he's a more difficult child and his brother's so much easier, right? Now, if you want a Cain and Abel type situation in your home, we'll just do that. So what ends up happening in this situation? Well, the dad feels entirely justified, right? He's justified. I cannot argue with the fact that the dad got upset and laid into his son a little bit. You're justified in doing that.

However, I would tell you that it's not helpful to lay into your child and react to him like that. Just because it's justified doesn't mean that it's right and it doesn't mean that it's helpful. And that's where I wanna get to a higher stage in our relationships. Look, I'm 55. I can justify anything at my age. I've come up with enough excuses. Give me an example and I'll come up with a justification for it. I'm not into justifying things. I want to build relationships

because that's what changes behavior. So what ended up happening was son goes to his room, son slams the door, and now we've got a justified dad who is completely justified. My son just told me to F off. He's justified being angry. Now the son, I don't know what's going on with the son, but my assumption is for a child to say something like that to his father, something's broken here. I'm not going to say it's justified, but I might be able to understand it. Either way, we now have a father and a son or a mother and a son or a mother and daughter. It doesn't matter. Now we have a parent and a child separated physically, emotionally, relationally. Nothing

good happens after that. It doesn't. And I would just encourage you to think about your own relationships. If you have a boss that you just kind of don't like because he doesn't trust you and he doesn't promote you and he doesn't treat you fairly and inside you kind of flip him off. If he just came and said, hey Frank or Susan, you know, here's the consequence because I don't really like your attitude around here. You're not going to be like, oh you know what, all of a sudden I feel like pleasing him. I think my attitude toward my boss just changed. No, it's not going to change because the relationship is broken, right? So in this case, also, I'm going to assume that now there's general discord.

The whole home is now blown up, right? Do you think everybody after that strong old job goes to dinner, everybody's going to go back to their meal like, okay, so what else happened today? Anybody else want to share something positive from their day? Oh, okay, so what else happened today? Anybody else want to share something positive from their day? Oh, honey, this is a really good meal. This food tastes so good tonight. I don't think so. I think there's going to be a lot of tension. And I think dinner's going to be ruined. And I think there's also going to be a lot of tension between the

husband and the wife because they're probably not on the same page and at least in our home. I won't say what's in your home. In our home, it was typically me blowing up at Casey and my wife having to choose between sticking up for her son. But if she did that, right, because if I was being too harsh and she stood up for him, which is a natural protective mama bear thing to do, well now she's got to worry like, well, but am I undermining my husband's authority? And now I'm on her because, you know, your son wouldn't talk like this if you weren't so soft and you didn't coddle him so much. And then she'd be resentful right back like, well, we wouldn't have so much tension in our marriage, in our home, if you didn't come home every day and rile

everything up and react personally to every single thing that our son did and notice everything that he does wrong because he can't sit perfectly still at the dinner table and doesn't eat his whole meal and he can't live up to your standards so you're always unhappy that's not real pleasant either that's reality in a lot of our homes so I want to show you a different way because that's reality in a lot of our homes. So I want to show you a different way because that's what we do. I want to show you a different way and it's going to challenge you and I want you to be challenged

and I want you to wrestle with these things. Moms and dads, I don't need you to agree with me. I don't need you to say like, wow, that really makes sense. But I want you to wrestle with it and challenge your assumptions and challenge the way you view situations. So what if in this situation,

and let's do it this way, after the dad had exploded and sent his son to his room, because this is reality, you're going to mess up. That's normal. So let's practice resetting. What do you do after you mess up? Well, what if this father, after feeling justified, walking around, digging in about this tough son who's always been difficult, and he and his wife go for a little walk and they're talking about it. What if he chooses to humble himself?

And I know I've been mentioning this a lot lately, but it's powerful. Humility is a powerful tool. Please allow me 30 seconds to address this from my Christian or religious friends. We love authority. We love all that justice in our things. Well, imagine that God never showed humility because that's what he did. He showed, he was, look, and this is your language. Okay, give me 30 seconds here. Now I've got about 10. You use that. He is justified, but he chose not to punish for that. Instead, he chose mercy. There was a great deal of humility there. So dad, mom, whoever it is in this situation.

So dad decides, oh, this kid, why does he do that? I've've got to punish him I can't let him get away with that kind of language we're not going to but dad humbles himself a little bit through gritted teeth and he walks up those stairs to his son's bedroom and he knocks on the door and there may not be a response or there may be a grunt or or there might be another F you coming right back at him. I don't know. But dad then proceeds to say, hey son, I'm sorry. What I said was unfair, and I shouldn't have said that, and it was hurtful, and I apologize. Listen, I'm going to go walk the dog right now, and I'd like you to join me when you're ready. And here's my promise. I will just listen to you, and I will not lecture you. So if you want to join me, come on out when you're ready, and we'll just go and walk.

And that dad just did something very beautiful because he invited his son into a relationship, and he invited him to speak, to listen, to communicate with him. Because look, when you send your child to your room, you just cut your child off from the very person who has the wisdom and tools to actually help him. I want your kids coming to you. They need you desperately. But when we send them away from us, now who are they going to go to? They're going to post on Facebook and Instagram and talk to their friends? Well, that's probably not going to be all that helpful. I want them coming to you. So watch what happens. It may take a little while. I don't think that son's going to come right out of his room and say, dad, thanks for humbling yourself because I

said something really awful and I was big of you. I don't think that's probably going to happen. It might be a little while. You may have to go downstairs and watch television or do something else and then your son comes down and maybe you give him a code word. You know what? Give your child a code word. That is a fantastic tool. Casey teaches that to kids all the time at school assemblies is using the code word. Hey son, when you're ready, just come down and use and then just give him a code word of something he likes. Maybe it's his favorite soccer player, football player, might be some favorite artist, favorite

musician, right? You come down and say pop smoke, right? I don't know why that was top of mind, but it just was. Most of you aren't even going to know who that was. It's because I'm volunteering at a community center and I'm fully invested in that. And so I don't care what your code word is. It could be anything. It could be football. It could be bad. You want to go walk the dog, right? Because that's a lot easier than, Father, I'd like to have a discussion with you about dropping the f-bomb on you earlier. Like that's just hard. Like lessen the boundaries. That's not the right word, but it's break down the walls,

break down the barriers, right? So that there's less of a barrier. So if he just comes down, like a lot of times at our camps that we ran for kids, I would hold up a football and say, when you're ready, let's go play catch. And sometimes the kids would come in and they just hold up a football. Well, that was a code word for me. I used code words all the time with Casey or code actions. So he didn't have to really talk. It was just like, that means my son wants to talk to me. So outside we go. So watch, I guarantee you when this finally happens, you're going to walk and it's going gonna be awkward. It's gonna be awkward

because dad's gonna be waiting for the son to apologize for saying those things. And I get that. But be patient, live in the discomfort and walk because you're walking right next to, I'll say this for the parents, you're walking next to your child. And I promise you, as your kids get older and older,

you're gonna look back and wish you had taken those moments instead of sending them away in anger or frustration that you are walking next to them. There's something powerful about that image and you're walking next to them. And I promise you, two things are probably going to happen. Number one, child will probably come out with an apology. You know why? Because you apologized first. Why? Because you're the leader in the home and because you're the

bigger person and you lead by example and because you needed to apologize because you did say things that were hurtful to your child. And you, you, I'm not, there's no blame and no guilt in anything we do, but you contributed probably to this whole relationship. There's something in us. I'll just make it about me. I didn't like my son. I was anxious about his future. I didn't like the way he did things. I didn't like a lot about him. And until I learned to accept him on a very deep level, nothing really changed. And some of you are holding that and there's resentment and there's fear and there's all these things about how difficult this child has been.

It's cost you time and money and just frustration. Although I'll tell you, this child has helped you grow up. And without this child, you would not have become as mature as you are. We're ripped out all of your hair. And if you embrace this, you will change entirely as a person. But I guarantee, out will come an apology. Now, it may not sound the way you want it to, but he's probably going to say, Dad, I'm sorry. No, I shouldn't have used those words and I shouldn't have said that to you. And inside, you're like, darn right, you shouldn't have, you little jerk. But that's when you're the big person again. You're like,

I appreciate that. Accept your apology, son. And then if you want to big person again. You're like, I appreciate that. Accept your apology, son. And then if you want to break the ice, you can say, son, I know that only came out because there's stuff under there. You're hurt or you're frustrated with me. And I know I've played a role and I'm not even sure exactly what I've done. But I'd like to listen to you. And you know what will probably come out of that child's mouth? If you give them enough time, it may not be the first night when

you go for a walk. It may take a couple times. It's going to come out, Dad, Mom, I don't feel like you like me as much as you like my brother or my sister. Or if they're an only child, I don't feel like you like me that much. And then you know what you can do? You can own up to it and say, you know what? I love you every bit as much as I love your brother, your sister. But I do struggle to connect with you. I struggle to connect with you because we're either so much alike, right? That I see myself in you and all of the mistakes I made.

I love you so much that I don't want you making the same mistakes and so unfortunately I've been on you so much and I ride you and I ride you and I'm on you all the time and it feels like you can never please me and like I'm always on you about the negative things and I fail to see the positive things and son I want to apologize to you because that wasn't right and if I were you I'd be hurt and so I want to work on that and I'm going to work on that that's a beautiful thing to say if it's true now it could be son you're so different from me I don't get get it. Whatever it is, I've always been a people pleaser. And I grew up in a home, and maybe I was afraid of my parents, so I just did what they said. And yet you're so independent.

You're creative. And you march to the beat of your own drum. And I've had trouble understanding things. And so, unfortunately, I've misunderstood your motives. And I think I've made some wrong assumptions about you. And for that, I am sorry. Or it could be, yes, I do struggle to connect with you. And I know it feels like I like your brother more than I like you. It's not that. It's just that I've struggled. And I have my own anxiety and my own control issues. And I want to work on that.

Son, here's what I'd like to come up with. I'd like to find, and look, this can be mother and daughter, mother and son. It doesn't matter, but I'm just using a father and son. So I'd like to come up with one activity. One activity that you love doing. Something you're interested in. And I'd like to, and this is a word in No BS program, I'd like to enter into that. You don't have to use those words with your child, but

I want to do that with you. I want to understand why that means so much to you. I want to follow your curiosity, right? And that's a lot of the No BS stuff of like, I want to, there's a releasing in that. I release you from the expectation that you need to be just like me. Son, I release you from the expectation that you have to do things the way that I do it or that you have to be just like me. And there's a lot of deep acceptance in here. And dads, especially since we've got Father's Day coming up, I know, and look, I hope this does not offend you at all. I know some of you have kids that are very difficult to connect with. And some of you have kids that are very difficult to connect with. And some of you have kids that you may think are like a little odd or weird.

And they're in all kinds of stuff. And for me, look, I'll make it about myself again. I was an athlete growing up. I was into normal, regular sports. And Casey just wasn't. And so I tried and tried because I wanted him to be on team sports. And I tried to get him into t-ball and baseball and soccer and all the things and football and everything that I played. And he just wasn't interested. And your kids have very unique passions at times. They're curious

about things. Follow their curiosity. I won't belabor this because many of you have heard it before, but Casey's thing when he was young, he loved cars. He just loved cars, the sound of cars, what they look like, what they smelled like, everything with it. And so I started doing what we called agenda-free time. Every Saturday morning, I would take him to a car dealership so he could look at the car and we could test drive the car. And I hated it, but it helped us bond because it wasn't me trying to change him. It was me taking an interest in something he was curious about. And I entered into it through my discomfort and through my disdain of having to talk to car dealers about like, yeah, we're really interested in a car.

We'd like to take that out for a little test drive if we could, which was really code for we would drive it as fast as we could. And when Casey was about 13 or 14, I would just take him to huge parking lots and let him drive it. Taught him how to drive stick shift at this little Porsche dealership in Tyson's Corner, Virginia. And do you know all the memories that we have from that? And that was a big part of it where that day, it wasn't about correcting his behavior and talking about his attitude toward his mother and talking about school. We simply had time where we began to rebuild our relationship. And you know, when you read, I hate saying that, you know,

here's the deal. When you change the relationship, behavior changes. It breaks down walls. And I want to end on this. These are opportunities. Not that I want your kids to flip you off, but I do hope some of your kids this week, I hope you have some conflict so that you can use it as an opportunity to say, you know what? No more division. No more sending my child away from me. I'm going to draw my child to me and I'm going to dig in and I'm going to deal with this. And I'm going to draw my child to me and I'm going to dig in and I'm going to deal with this and I'm going to, sorry for this, I'm going to grow up and handle this like a mature adult. And I want you to do that in your marriage as well because we put all the marriage stuff away. Well, we'll deal with that later. No, deal with it now. Grow up, be mature, and say, honey, we're not right. This isn't what it was supposed to look

like, and I'm clueless about what to do, but I'm willing to dig in and do the hard work and change myself so that we have a shot at having what we really wanted. So I'm willing to grow up. I'm willing to humble myself. I'm willing to work on myself, honey or son or daughter. Will you join me in that? Will you be patient with me in that? And can we do this together? If you do that, you will become a different person. Your family will be different. It is more important than all that discipline stuff I did up front. Heal the relationship. Dig in. If we can help you, get the everything package if you want. It's got the no BS in there for free. We're doing that in the special. It's got the marriage program and about 35 hours of tough discipline, motivating

your child, all those things. Reach out to Casey and we'll help you. But we love you and we thank you for listening. Bye-bye.