Do Not Apologize For Your Kids This Thanksgiving

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[22] Many of you are going to be spending Thanksgiving with extended family and you're going to get judged for your parenting.

[23] Your kids are going to get judged.

[24] because they don't fit in and they're not like all the perfect little kids in your extended family.

[25] And I don't want you to be on the defensive.

[26] And I do not want you to apologize for your child.

[27] Instead, I want to give you the confidence to move forward and enjoy this Thanksgiving break because everybody needs a break from the constant tension and the school pressure and everything else going on.

[28] So let's create a success here.

[29] So that's what we're going to talk about today on the Calm Parenting Podcast.

[30] So welcome.

[31] This is Kirk Martin founder, Celebrate Calm .com.

[32] You can find us at Celebrate Calm .com.

[33] Please share our podcast with other people.

[34] And if you need help, reach out to our strong -willed son, Casey, C -A -S -E -Y at Celebrate Calm .com.

[35] Don't be shy.

[36] We get this all the time.

[37] Well, we've been listening to the podcast for a year and we finally decided to email.

[38] It's just an email.

[39] Email, tell us about your family.

[40] Because we kick things around and we come back and we'll say, hey, try this, try this.

[41] Give you a recommendation.

[42] If you're interested in our products, Casey will put together a custom, package for you if you want within your budget.

[43] And now everything's kind of within your budget because we slash prices like 70 % for our Black Friday sale.

[44] So find that celebratecom .com.

[45] But do reach out to us because we love helping family.

[46] So a couple of things.

[47] I'm going to try to keep this short.

[48] Let's play to your kids' strengths over Thanksgiving, right?

[49] Let's put them, you know our process.

[50] Instead of just waiting for the shoe to drop, instead of waiting for your child to melt down, right to have something happen then we react and give them a consequence and which never the consequences never work instead i want to proactively give kids tools to succeed what do your kids do well let's have them do that what with the relatives if you're going to someone's house the uncle's house or the grandparents house and you know your child is good at building things have the uncle the grandpa the grandma say oh man your mom said you're really good at building things i'm actually working on this project.

[51] Could you come out and help me in the garage?

[52] Hey, your mom said you're really, really strong and love kind of working outside.

[53] I've got a project outside that I could really use it.

[54] Do you think you're strong enough to help me with this?

[55] Could you shovel some mulch for me?

[56] I don't care if you take your own mulch.

[57] Create a success and I'm not being funny with that.

[58] Create successes.

[59] Set it up.

[60] If you're just like, while I hope things go well, they're not going to go well.

[61] Plan things out a little bit.

[62] Have Grandma sit with your really creative child and do something really creative with her so that your grandparents and the uncles and aunts can say, yeah, I know that child doesn't do that well in school, but man, is he or she good at doing X?

[63] They're great.

[64] They always play well with their relatives, but man, they're great in adult situations and have them be a waiter because our kids love adult jobs.

[65] Let them get involved in the cooking.

[66] Now, that actually won't work because I guarantee you this.

[67] Probably the person responsible for doing the big Thanksgiving dinner probably has control issues because every family has that person, right?

[68] And you're like, oh, I'd like to do something different, but they've got it like all rigidly set and you can't suggest anything and they have to have everything be just so.

[69] But anyway, that's their own issue.

[70] So control what you can control.

[71] Set them up for success.

[72] When things come around, right?

[73] Because you're going to get that.

[74] We used to get this all the time.

[75] I'm not going to mention which family member.

[76] it was.

[77] But the one part of the family would come in like, oh, our children are just, you know, she's on honor roll and her son has taken honor classes and they had the bumper stickers of how awesome their kids are all over the car.

[78] And our bumper sticker for Casey was, our son didn't get suspended this semester, right?

[79] And we would always feel so defensive over it.

[80] And then I started learning about how these kids work and the advantages that our kids have.

[81] because they do.

[82] They just don't show up usually in childhood.

[83] And I usually make this joke around the holidays when that perfect relative comes in and say, hey, love that your daughter's awesome and perfect, but you better tell your compliant child to be nice to my strong will child because one day your compliant child, it's going to be working for my strong will child because that's how it works in life.

[84] Our kids grow up and they have a lot of jobs and they get fired because I don't like authority figures and they want to do it their own way and they end up starting their own business because they've got initiative, because they're creative, because they have ideas, because they can hyperfocus when they're motivated by something, and then they end up owning their own business and who do they hire?

[85] Really compliant people.

[86] That's how it works.

[87] And you have to have this long -term vision.

[88] And it's one thing I've been hearing a lot in my phone consultations.

[89] And we're doing a lot of those now with me not traveling.

[90] And I'm loving it.

[91] And for me, my main focus is, okay, let's try something different.

[92] Here's a game plan.

[93] Here's five different things we're going to try over the next two weeks and I come up with a game plan and action step and invariably what parents tell me is you know what the most helpful part is just to know that I'm okay and that I'm not crazy and that someone understands just how difficult it is to raise a child like this and it's helpful to know that my child's going to be okay in life and there's something very grounding and valuable about that I'm trying to impart that to you today that you're okay and your kids are going to be okay, right?

[94] And, you know, I was thinking about this with our son Casey, who's 27 now.

[95] He's living out west now because he loves the mountains.

[96] And I know he's going to get picked off by another employer.

[97] I know it because he's meeting people all the time.

[98] And I guarantee you when a business person meets him, they're not going to say, okay, so Casey, tell me, how are you at sitting perfectly still all day long listening to information you're not really interested in?

[99] and how are you at memorizing lots of little facts and then recalling it for a time test while I stand over you and then you just get to forget the information?

[100] And how are you at just, you know, following directions all the time?

[101] Because I don't really need you to think or anything or be creative.

[102] How are you at those three things?

[103] No, that's not what they're going to ask him.

[104] And that's not what they're going to notice.

[105] They're going to notice a child who's got initiative, who goes for it, who is willing to take some risks, but who's a good decision maker so it can balance that risk reward.

[106] And they're going to meet a kid who's really comfortable in the adult world, who's very, very comfortable talking to adults.

[107] They're not going to say, like, how are you getting along with kids your own age?

[108] Because most of your kids can't do that well.

[109] But your kids, they will walk like 100 yards ahead of you, wherever you go, and you'll find them and they'll end up talking to someone, some adult having a grown -up conversation.

[110] So put them in, put them in situations in which they excel.

[111] And when your family is talking about all the things about your kids, don't mention all, don't play their game.

[112] Say, you know what I love about my son?

[113] And I just realize this.

[114] You know what I kind of argues all the time?

[115] You're like, yeah, that's just, you know, he's just so, I don't know how he deal with that because he's just so disrespectful.

[116] And you're like, you know what I realized?

[117] He's really good at arguing.

[118] And that tells me this.

[119] He's got this brain that's always thinking.

[120] And he sees patterns and things.

[121] And that's why he's good at checkers and chess and building with Legos.

[122] And he's good at arguing because he already knows what I'm going to say before I even say it.

[123] And he's good at picking out inconsistencies because he sees patterns.

[124] And it's just like he's good at tinkering with things and building.

[125] It's like he's tinkering with my brain.

[126] And what I realized was that was mainly my issue because I react all the time.

[127] What I was missing is I'm raising a really bright kid who has standards who picks out my inconsistencies and yet he doesn't always do it in a respectful way because he's a kid.

[128] But what I love about my son is he's not afraid to challenge people and he's challenging my thinking and I'm grateful because it's Thanksgiving.

[129] I'm grateful that I have a strong will child because he's causing me to grow up and mature and all those things I thought I would never do with a child, I'm doing, and I'm realizing that's my issue.

[130] And I'm realizing, you know why my son struggles in school?

[131] Because so many of the things they measure in school are arbitrary.

[132] And my four -year -old daughter, who's getting in trouble because she can't sit still in circle time, what I realized is there's no time in my adult life where someone said, hey, Sarah, three o 'clock in the conference room, circle time.

[133] I've never had to do that.

[134] It's arbitrary.

[135] And so, no, she's not good at sitting still and she also doesn't always listen to directions but you know what's really happening she wakes up in the morning and she's got her own thoughts and she's got ideas and she's got plans and she's creative and she's trying to work those out in our brain so sometimes she does miss things and sometimes she just disregards things and i'm not excusing it but i'm understanding why that is and that's setting her up for success in life really really well because we want people with initiative, who have plans, who can carry them out, who are single -minded, who are focused on those things.

[136] And my kids, you know what else I realized?

[137] They can hyper -focus.

[138] They have trouble focusing on things that they're not interested in.

[139] But that's the way the brain's supposed to work.

[140] Because you, dear sister -in -law or aunt and uncle, you don't read books and watch TV shows about things you're not interested in.

[141] But that's what we ask kids to do.

[142] and then we grade them on that.

[143] But when we're adults, we don't go and apply for jobs that we wouldn't be good at doing.

[144] We apply for jobs where we have a natural strength.

[145] And so what I'm realizing is when I put my kids in those situations, they excel.

[146] And they're far beyond other kids.

[147] So yeah, my kids kind of struggle with childhood, but I'm not really raising a child.

[148] I'm raising them to be an adult.

[149] And they're going to spend from age 20 to 80 as adults, their whole life is basically going to be as an adult.

[150] So I know they're struggling right now, but I've got the wisdom, I've got the courage, and I've got the foresight to raise them for the adult life and to give them tools to succeed.

[151] Does that make sense?

[152] I want your mindset to shift here and to stop, I was going to say kvetching.

[153] Stop kivetching, right?

[154] And stop worrying all the time and wringing your hands about like, oh, what, well, he's so defun.

[155] Look, I'm going to say kvetching, stop kvetching, right?

[156] And stop worrying all the time and ringing your hands about like, oh, look, don't have compliance, rigid compliance to what authority figures tell me to do is not high on my list of what I want.

[157] Do I want a disrespectful child?

[158] No. I don't, but I want a child who is capable of independent thought, who is not afraid to challenge authority figures in a respectful way, and you have to teach them how to do that.

[159] But our kids have everything necessary to be successful in life.

[160] They do.

[161] When they play their video games, which I don't want them doing, and we can help you get them off of video games.

[162] Listen to, look, if you get the Black Friday sale thing, get the instant downloads.

[163] And the beautiful thing is you can share those.

[164] We allow you to, they're downloadable to multiple devices, to smartphones, to iPads, to tablets, to computers, whatever you want, you can get it physically.

[165] But you can also share those downloads with that aunt and uncle, that brother and sister, your parents, so they understand with your teacher even.

[166] So they don't understand this about these kids' brains.

[167] There's nothing wrong with your child.

[168] There's nothing wrong with your child.

[169] They are different, but they don't have a disorder.

[170] Get tired of constant, well, they have a disorder.

[171] How about they're just different?

[172] How about the compliant people who just do what everybody tells them to do all the time and grow up all resentful and have no creativity and no initiative, why don't we say they have a disorder because they're afraid to step out and take a risk, right?

[173] Is it, was there a risk aversion disorder?

[174] Sure, I think there should be.

[175] If we're going to lay, look, if we're going to go around labeling our kids with disorders, I want to lay a bunch of disorders on all the people who are neurotypical because there's all kinds of things that they do that sabotage their success in life.

[176] But we don't label it as a disorder.

[177] It's only with our kids that we label.

[178] And it makes me angry as anything because what a horrible thing to do, to tell a child there's something wrong with your brain just because it's different than other people's brains.

[179] What a horrible thing to do our society does.

[180] And I don't want us as parents to fall into that.

[181] I get it.

[182] It's helpful to have a diagnosis sometimes to understand parameters and sometimes to get help in school.

[183] But it's a, but I do.

[184] But I, do not want to be confined by that because most of the time those things are just wrong they're just we all have strengths we all have weaknesses and i'd love to come to your house and talk to your relatives and point out all of their weaknesses and ask why they're not more successful life because they're afraid of they're afraid of judgment or they're afraid to be um take a risk or look our kids part of the reason they're going to do so well in life is because they don't need social acceptance they're not by followers.

[185] They will do their own thing.

[186] And that is a fantastic trait.

[187] It just makes them really difficult to raise as children when you're the parent.

[188] So this Thanksgiving, I'm going to kind of cut it off there.

[189] This Thanksgiving, I want you to be grateful that this strong will child is provoking all kinds of immaturity and stuff in you that you're reacting and that your spouse is reacting and now it's difficult on your marriage.

[190] And that has nothing to do with your child.

[191] It's a good thing.

[192] you know why because they're bringing stuff up inside of both of you so that you can both deal with it so you can strengthen your marriage rather than it falling apart that is a gift that your child brings and when you are more patient and when you break these generational patterns because that's what we're about it's not just about changing your child's behavior it's about breaking generational patterns in us which is a huge gift to your children so they don't grow up to be that control freak who controls everything at Thanksgiving dinner, right?

[193] We don't want your kids to grow up and be that person that everybody talks about.

[194] Anyway, hey, happy Thanksgiving.

[195] If we can help you, reach out to us.

[196] Don't be shy.

[197] K -C -C -A -S -E -Y at celebrate calm .com.

[198] We'll help you.

[199] That's what we exist to do.

[200] Love you all.

[201] Happy Thanksgiving.

[202] Bye -bye.