Calm Parenting Podcast - Your Name is A 4-Letter Word In Our Home

Episode Date: July 28, 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 what do you do when you receive an email that begins like this? Hey Kirk, your name is a four-letter word in our home. Well, you read it of course because I love irreverent people and irreverent parents as long as they're changing. So we're going to start with that on the Calm Parenting Podcast. Welcome. This is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us at CelebrateCalm.com if you need help with anything, scheduling, teacher training, parent workshop, any of our products, resources.

If you have questions, email Casey, C-A-S-E-Y, at CelebrateCalm.com, and we will be glad to help you. So I get this email, and in this podcast, I'm going to focus on one very specific strategy or a very specific action step that I want you to take this week, and I want you to practice it and work on it and work at it because it will change your family very, very much. It's based on three experiences. The first one is this email that I get. Hey, Kirk, your name's a four letter word in our home. So, I was intrigued.

So, first the mom says, at first we were irritated by your basic message. Right, like, oh the quickest way to change your child's behavior is to first control your own. And we were skeptical about that. But my husband and I started doing it. And guess what? It worked. Now, when I get emails, I'm kind of an irreverent person. So I want to kind of answer back and say like, no, duh. You think I just do this? You just think I make up stuff that wouldn't work and waste your time and my time? So of course it worked. Sorry, but that's true, right? You get it all the time. Like, we can't believe that this actually worked. I'm like, I've put my entire life into this. I don't

think I want to spend all of our time traveling and doing stuff. It doesn't. So anyway, she's like, it worked. And so we kept working at it. And she said, I finally told my cheap, I can't say the word because this is PG podcast. I told my cheap husband, hey, maybe we should invest in the programs because we keep listening to his podcast for free. He's helped our family. We've made more changes listening to him than we did in spending thousands of dollars on therapy. So he's like, well, what's the cheapest thing that they have? Well, she eventually talked them into getting the

special that we have going on. And you can find that at CelebrateCalm.com. There's a Christmas in July special. There's a special on get everything that we have. That's what they ended up getting because they're smart people. And so they get that. And they said they had one final hurdle. The mom did. one final hurdle. I talk too much. And by judging by the length of her email, I knew that was true. No offense. I'm just kidding, but not really. So yeah, she talks too much, right? Like that's not, that's like almost all of us struggle with that. And she said what she did was she uh she downloaded all of the programs onto her phone onto her computer they actually got this physical cds as well and she said i literally played them

all the time i've heard for 30 days like i just played them and played them until i was sick of your voice and i was like i get sick of my voice after 15 minute podcast trust me so she said really interesting thing happened. The kids were listening because she'd play them in front of the kids. And they were like, well, why are you listening to this? Like, what are you doing? And she goes, this has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with me. Have you noticed that sometimes I talk and lecture too much? And the kids were like, uh, yeah, that's kind of what you do. And so the mom, to her credit, said, I want to stop that. I want to change. Life is all about changing yourself, not other people, right? Stop trying

to focus on everybody else and change yourself. So they took one of our suggestions that you will hear in the programs on come up with a code word. And so one of the ways that I actually changed early on was to hold myself accountable to my son to say, I know I have this issue, but I don't even realize I'm doing it half the time. Could we come up with a code word so that every time I start shaking my head in disapproval or doing demeaning things or talking too much or lecturing, you give me a code word because that way I can start to identify the patterns and my triggers and change it. So it's a really beautiful thing. It's really cool. And people are always like, oh, but that gives power to the kids. No, it doesn't. No, you're modeling for them. You're modeling the very thing that you want your kids to learn,

which is I have issues and I need to hold myself accountable. And all I can really do in life is change myself. And I'm asking for some help. And I'm modeling humility. And I'm modeling, I'm the authority figure in the home. And the authority figure in the home gains and earns respect by changing him or herself and by working on myself even harder than trying to change everybody else. So this family came up with a code word, which is zombie. They got it somewhere from Minecraft. And one of the kids said, mom, you're killing us with all the talking. So zombie, you can tell the irreverence kind of flows downhill all through the family. But here's what happened. The kids would start. And the reason I like, look, the reason I like the code word is, I don't want to say, mom, you know what, you're

lecturing again. You talk too much. I don't want your kids being snotty towards you, but I want them to be able to say, mom, zombie, you're turning us into zombies again. And then what the mom said was, I didn't even realize how often I was doing this. It had become such a habit, an ingrained habit in me. But I started to identify my patterns and I started to apologize in that moment and ask questions and listen and just be quiet. And my message, my encouragement for you, my challenge for you this week, because we're getting late in July and And next week, I'm

going to start really talking about getting back to school time, because this school year is going to be very, very different and odd and challenging. But I want to finish up July with this. I want you to learn to stop talking so much. I used to do a newsletter, and I may do it this week. You can sign up at CelebrateCalm.com. We do a free newsletter so you get stuff in writing, which is really helpful. I used to do a newsletter once or twice a year that just said, shut up. And I know that will offend some of you, and it's not meant to be offensive. It's meant to cut through the clutter, to say sometimes you just need to shut up. You need to stop talking because it doesn't help

things. It almost never helps things. And it almost always makes things worse. So two quick experiences that we had this last week with, we had family and friends come and visit. So here's a good one. One of the, I'm struggling because this is family members, and some listen and some don't. But they won't be offended because I asked them if I could use them as an example. But it's still kind of funny to use your family. But then again, all of Celebrate Calm is basically built on all of my mistakes as a dad and pretty much everything I did wrong. So transparency is a really kind of liberating, cool thing.

So I won't use my brother's name and my sister-in-law's name because I've got three sets of them. So it could be any one of them. Anyway, so wife had asked hubby to go to the grocery store and get a little list so they could make dinner because when they're visiting in the house, they want to be able to make dinner for us. Really sweet thing. Well, naturally, or maybe not naturally, but hubby

forgot something. And so they're starting to fix dinner. And he said, no, I got everything on that list. Like I know what's on the list. And they're like, no. And you missed a key ingredient. So the wife goes and starts searching for the list. And here's where my calm parenting and all of this stuff, my head starts to explode because the hubby was already defensive. He was getting upset because he really wanted to help. He made a good effort, but he messed up. And so this isn't always true, but I know a lot of men have a hero complex, and I know I do. And we always want to be seen as like the hero. We're actually very fragile people at times.

And so anything that bursts that hero complex in front of our family, man, it really gets to us. That was one of the hardest things when I began changing is admitting that I got upset too easily and then I reacted too easily and then I blew up because I wanted my family to look at me as like, oh, he's a guy who can handle anything. He goes to work and he handles all these things. And now I was exposed. I was naked in front of my family because they saw how I really was. And it shattered this whole image that I wanted. And you'll see this a lot in men trying to control their wives and like, don't tell anyone about this because they don't want to be exposed. And so the hubby was getting upset. The wife starts

to go and look for the list. And I was like, no, I didn't say anything because I wanted to see how it played out. And I don't like to get between couples. And so I knew she was kind of wanting to prove her point. And there's no need in that situation. He was already defensive. There's no need to prove your point. I think he knew that he messed up, right, just by his thing. And so his wife kept going on and on. And I know she was trying to make it better somehow, but it just made it worse. And sometimes the best, most oftentimes, the best thing you can do is just stop talking, especially when someone else that you care about is upset. Stop talking. She kept going, and he kept reacting, and it became this whole reactive cycle. And I know what she would have said. Well, I just wanted him to know. And I'm like, he kind of already knew. And that's not

the time to prove your point when someone's feeling defensive. But we do it all the time. Likewise, when people started arriving, one of the families has a teenage daughter. And so they had had a fairly long drive. And of course, you know what happens when you arrive. If you were raised by a career military father like I was, then as soon as you arrive, you got to start barking out orders because we've got a car to unload. Everybody's got to pull their weight and you've got to do their stuff. I don't

want you saying hi and hugging all the relatives. Just start taking stuff from the car because we've got to get all of our stuff in and we've got to get it organized and we've got to get our place set because we need to know which bedroom we're in. We got to put away all the refrigerated stuff that we bought, brought down here, and we got to get all this stuff done. No time for that's me. That's my natural thing. Well, so this daughter gets slowly out of the car because it was such a long drive and she's not in a great mood and so the mom picks up on that could have easily been the dad but in this case it was the mom who was interacting and so she starts in on the daughter now in this case I intervened

why because I just felt like it and because I could see what was about to happen and I don't want the introduction to I didn't want their arrival to be start with all of this tension now some of it is I grew up in a home where there was a ton of tension I knew every day when my dad got home from work we heard the doors to his little Chevy Impala slam shut and we were to judge, is my dad going to be in a good mood or a bad mood? What's going to happen when he enters our home? Is there going to be an immediate outbreak of a fight between my dad and my mom and a lot of yelling and screaming? And to this day, that is a wounding thing to me. I don't want to overstate it. I don't want to say it's trauma to me. It's not trauma, but it is something that triggers me. I don't like to

hear it. I don't like that tension. Because it's more than tension. It's conflict and it's not two people trying to work on things. So anyway, so I intervene and I walk up to my sister-in-law and I grab her by the arm, grab her, but you know whatlaw, and I grab her by the arm. I didn't grab her, but you know what I mean. I took her by the arm in mine, and I said, I'm so glad you're here, and I started asking her some questions about one of her passions, which is nutrition, and I said, could you come in the kitchen and show me, because I'm trying to eat a little bit more healthy, and could you help me with that? And she said, well, but I need to go talk to my daughter,

and I said, you weren't talking to your daughter. You were lecturing and you were about to tell her off and tell her what a lazy person she was and she needs to be more responsible. And I said, that's true, isn't it? She goes, well, yeah, but if I don't talk to her, I'm letting her get away with things. And I was like, you're not letting her get away with anything. You were going to, it was going to lead to an explosion and she wasn't

going to listen to you anyway. And it was just going to escalate and get ugly. True? And she's like, yeah, I guess so. But I feel like I owe it to her as a parent to let her know. And I was like, she already knows to be responsible because you and your spouse are responsible people. And you guys have done this a million times. Now, whether she follows through or not right now is another question, but she had a long trip. So let me take care of it. And I bet I can get her to do things, but you were just going to escalate it. And you were just going to reinforce that she can never please you and you're you have OCD issues and everything else and so I said come inside show me a couple things and I promise you

give me you will see your daughter come in and she will have a good attitude toward everyone else and she will unload the car she just won't do it the way you want her to immediately and sure enough we got in the kitchen, calmed her down. The daughter eventually came in and said, mom, I'm sorry. Now that doesn't always happen, but I do believe that oftentimes that humility on our part leads to contrition on our kids' part. And so they were able to talk afterwards much later, but a lot of times there's no need to just prove your point. So you know what? I'm going to expand it.

I'm going to make it two things. I'm going to make it stop talking so much. Just stop. You don't, you don't, it doesn't work. Look, I almost want to stop talking because I feel like I'm berating you, which I kind of am, but you need to stop it, right? So do like this mom did, the irreverent mom. And oh, the other part of the four-letter word is she said, the funny part was she said, now we use your name

in a tough situation of like, what would Kirk do? Now, I'm uncomfortable in that position because I know who that usually refers to, and I'm not that good a person but if that works for you right now do it but we talked we we talked through that and what the mom realized was the only time I really ever talked to my daughter with any passion is when I'm getting on her and I was like bingo so you going to have conflict all the time and her being resistant. But if you will stop talking all the time. So I'm going to make it two things. One is you don't have to talk all the time. You don't. And it usually makes it worse. And it doesn't mean, look, there's this thing, a lot of my religious parents, friends and Christian parents

are like, well, but we're supposed to discipline. I'm like, but lecturing isn't discipline. Lecturing is lecturing. It's hectoring. It's badgering. It's focusing on the negative all the time. That's not discipline. Discipline is teaching. Teaching has a whole different tone than lecturing and getting on someone about what they're not doing right. And you can tell because good discipline leads to a closer, more trusting relationship and leads to good change. Your lecturing doesn't lead to that, so that's one thing, and I'll expand it to stop proving your point. Why do you need to prove your point? And I could spend a million minutes on this one, but I'm not. I'm trying to keep this short with politics, with social stuff, with everything else. Everybody feels the need to prove their point.

And all it proves is that they're basically jerks who don't really care about people. Watch, you've got to watch this. People end up caring more about the cause than they do about people. And the cause, whatever they're advocating for or against, becomes more important than actual human beings and actual people because they want to prove their point. And it's like the parent in this situation and the wife in this situation, and I guarantee

the husband and many other situations, it's all about, well, I just feel like, I just feel like, well, it doesn't matter what you feel like. Because if it's hurting your relationship and isn't leading to constructive change, then it's harmful and stop doing it. That need to prove your point, if I'm honest with you, is it's just your own immaturity. Why do you have to prove your point with it? Why can't you just let it go? Because people pretty much know the point, but we feel this need to do this. So I'm going to say that to moms, to dads, to everyone. It's personal because I felt like I always needed to prove my point in our home and especially with my wife. And it basically destroyed her because it made her feel like she was like three inches

tall and like a little kid because I was always trying to prove my point. It was actually demeaning to her. And so it was my own immaturity where it's like, I know, I know, but I just want to be heard. I just want to be heard. Well, maturity says, I don't have to be heard all the time. I'm confident. I know what I'm doing. I'm good with this. I'll ask questions and I'll let you figure it out on your own. In our words with kids, it's when I step back as a parent, it gives kids space to step up, right? And that's, please listen to the Strong Willed Child program because we teach you about giving kids ownership of their choices, not control, but ownership and learning to step back as a parent. Because inadvertently, when you're

always lecturing, always proving your point, always on them, what you're basically saying child is you're incapable of being responsible and you need me here to always point out what you're doing wrong and how you did it wrong and how I would do it and I have to correct you all the time and lecture all the time and you're telling your child you're not capable, you're incapable, and you're creating dependency on you. And what we ultimately want is to step back, to control myself, control my mouth and my tongue, and stop talking so much, and stop trying to prove my point, and give kids some space to learn on their own, and to watch by how you model things, and to lead them with humility, right? So there is contrition and so they begin to change

and so they learn how to do things themselves without us being on them all the time. I promise you it works so much better. So do that this week. Those two things, if we can help you, email Kirk. No, email Casey, CelebrateCalm.com. Look for our Christmas in July special. Look for the special we have on the Get Everything package. If we can help you, email us. We love this. This is not our business. It is a family passion, and we love this, and we want to help you. Thank you for being a good parent.

We'll talk to you soon. Bye-bye.