“Calm Down Now!” 5 Ways to Calm Situations

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[24] So do you ever have a child who gets upset?

[25] Maybe he yells at your spouse or he gets up from the dinner table or you're out in public and he's starting to melt down.

[26] You're like, I've got a better nip this in the bud, right?

[27] Because I can't let him get away with this and then all of a sudden it escalates.

[28] Well, I want to show you how to do it a different way and I've got a challenge for you this week that I believe you're going to be able to do.

[29] You're going to be able to master this and it's really cool.

[30] And that's what we're going to talk about today on the Calm Parenting podcast.

[31] So welcome.

[32] We're glad you're here.

[33] This is Kirk Martin.

[34] I'm founder of Celebrate Calm.

[35] You can find us at celebrate calm .com.

[36] If you need help with anything, reach out to our strong -willed son who did all of these things, right?

[37] Just about everything that we go over, what were things that Casey did, and then also usually my negative, bad overreaction to it, which made everything worse.

[38] So we've lived this, and we live this with 1 ,500 kids in our home, and almost a million people now that we've spoken to and talked to and helped.

[39] all over the world.

[40] And no matter where we go, whether we speak in Ukraine or Prague, we were Prague speaking there, it doesn't matter.

[41] Parents and kids are the same everywhere, right?

[42] So if you need help, reach out to our son, Casey, C -A -S -E -Y, celebrate calm .com.

[43] So here's my goal for you this week.

[44] And you're going to get ahead of me. You're not going to like this.

[45] You're going to be like, but when do we get to bring down the hammer?

[46] I've done podcasts on how to bring down the hammer.

[47] here's what I want this week.

[48] I just want you to calm the next three, four, five situations that start to escalate.

[49] I just want you to calm them down.

[50] I just want you to learn how to de -escalate.

[51] That's it.

[52] And I'm going to tell you why in a few minutes.

[53] It's all we're going to do this week.

[54] No matter what the situation is, let's calm it down.

[55] Let's de -escalate.

[56] You're going to want to go to you, I know, but when do I get to discipline?

[57] When do I get to teaching that actions have consequences?

[58] we're going to get to that.

[59] And I may do that one next week for you, okay?

[60] But right now I just want to de -escalate.

[61] You know why?

[62] Because if you don't de -escalate, there's no discipline happening.

[63] The only discipline happening is your wife looking at you or you looking at each other, right?

[64] And people judging you because you lost control because your four or seven or 14 -year -old did something inappropriate.

[65] And they look over and at first they were judging, right, because your child was doing something weird.

[66] And now they're judging you because you're freaking out and you're a grown adult.

[67] So, let's de -escalate.

[68] Starts with what?

[69] Controlling ourselves.

[70] We are the leaders.

[71] You and I are the adults.

[72] We're the leaders.

[73] We lead people to calm.

[74] If you've seen us live, especially a long time ago, we used to lead with this example all the time, and it sounds stupid, but it's highly effective.

[75] When kids are getting upset, I want you to sit.

[76] Sit down.

[77] I did this with over a thousand kids in public, in our house, wherever.

[78] I found when I sit and I cross my legs, it changes something.

[79] It changes the entire dynamic of the situation.

[80] Just picture this versus me stomping, walking over, standing over someone, starting to get upset, standing with my hands on my hips.

[81] When I sit, it's communicating this.

[82] I'm in complete control.

[83] My yes is my yes.

[84] My no is my no. I'm not going to repeat things 14 times.

[85] I'm also not going to scream at you.

[86] You know where I learned this partially besides with the kids?

[87] Works with my dogs.

[88] We had these golden retrievers, two of them.

[89] My favorite one was the little dog, the little boy dog named Buddy.

[90] Buddy's an awesome dog.

[91] He has now since passed into Doggy Heaven, but he is an awesome dog.

[92] And when we lived in Nashville, I would run that dog because you've got to exercise dogs and you've got to exercise your little kids too.

[93] Got to wear him out.

[94] And we play with this ball.

[95] And he'd run and run and run.

[96] And he would probably run himself to death.

[97] if I didn't take the lead and make them drink water.

[98] So I'd lead him inside to the water bowl and I'd be like, hey, buddy, drink.

[99] He wouldn't do it until I sat down next to him.

[100] And then he would lie down like a good golden retriever with his big fat paws right around that little bowl of water and he'd slurp it up.

[101] If I moved and started to walk away, he would get up.

[102] Why?

[103] Because dogs, because kids, and I'm not equating to two, right?

[104] But they follow us.

[105] We're the leaders, and they feed off of us.

[106] And when I would sit down, it said to buddy, safe, I'm going to sit here, take your time, and then we'll go play with the ball again.

[107] And I'm not, I'm not being funny with that, but it works with human beings.

[108] It works with everyone.

[109] When I control myself first, other people follow my lead.

[110] We've done plenty of podcasts.

[111] You'll hear it all over the CDs on how to use a calm, even matter of fact voice.

[112] The even matter of fact voice is very, very common.

[113] It's the voice that you use at work.

[114] It's the voice that you want someone speaking to you with.

[115] Because nobody, none of you want someone yelling at you, even if they're the authority figure at work or wherever it is.

[116] You don't want anyone yelling at you.

[117] And they can say, like, well, I'm in this position.

[118] I'm the authority figure.

[119] Like, oh, okay, I'm happy about it now.

[120] It's not how it works.

[121] Right?

[122] So we calm things down through body posture by tone of voice.

[123] In the moment, I want you to start recognizing this.

[124] Some of you're going to be on vacation because we're at July.

[125] You're with a family, right?

[126] And that basically means everybody's judging you.

[127] Right?

[128] Because especially the ones that don't have a strong will child.

[129] By the way, that's why I love you.

[130] love people getting our instant downloads because with the instant downloads you can download them to multiple devices all of these programs and you can let your brother and sister aunts and uncles grandparents listen to these because then they'll understand your child like never before and then you could say hey if you want to help me the whole judging thing yeah not really working but if you'd listen to this program on the strong will child or on discipline or motivating or whatever it is, get some ideas, you may be able to see it from a fresh point of view and help us out and come support us instead of just telling us, if you were just tougher and gave consequences, your child would listen to you.

[131] You're like, oh, we never thought of doing consequences.

[132] Of course, because that's all anybody ever goes to, but if you've got a child like our kids, they don't really respond to consequences, right?

[133] So if you get the program's instant downloads, a couple things.

[134] One is during July, we give an extra discount.

[135] We've got a Christmas in July sale, get an extra discount, and you can share it and you can listen right on multiple devices.

[136] And if one day you get a new phone, we'll help you download that on the new phone anyway.

[137] So in the moment, here's what I want you to do with, is deal with your own anxiety and start to realize in these moments, watch the internal voices that come up.

[138] What am I doing something wrong?

[139] What if they grow up in there like this?

[140] What if they're like this for other people?

[141] By the way, just know that most of your kids are awesome for other people.

[142] They're just horrible for you.

[143] So relax.

[144] Right.

[145] And you have all these things like, oh, what did we do wrong?

[146] What's going to happen in the future?

[147] What happens in school if they do this?

[148] How are they ever going to, right?

[149] Who's going to marry them?

[150] Who's going to hire them?

[151] And all of our anxiety causes us to project out into the future.

[152] And I really want to encourage you please do not project into the future your kids will change what you are seeing at age four or seven or fourteen or seventeen is not what they're going to be like at 17 it's not how it works and what happens is if in that moment you react out of your anxiety you will react and when you react you give your child complete control of the situation because you are no longer in control and the reason I reacted was my own anxiety and I have control issues because I like things done a certain way.

[153] Those of you who are engineers, project managers, many people like that, you have control issues because you like flowcharts and you like things to be done a certain way.

[154] And that's awesome at work.

[155] And I love that quality.

[156] But it doesn't work well with other human beings because other human beings, i .e. your spouse and your kids and your coworkers, don't want to be controlled right now I see if this makes sense I would correct Casey very quickly soon as he did something wrong soon as it created see if this makes sense a lack of order as soon as a lack of order came if he didn't do things in the right way or he spilled something or he left something on the floor or he didn't pick up his stuff immediately my sense of order gets triggered and as soon as that happens I'm all over him and my tone of voice changes my body posture changes and I'm all over him and here's the key point I needed Casey to do what I told him to do how I told him to do it because if he didn't do it that way totally freaked me it messed with my sense of order and I needed him to behave if you need your kids to behave watch because what here's what we're saying I need you to behave because if you don't do what I asked you to do the way I told you to do it I'm not sure I can behave.

[157] You do not want to see me angry.

[158] And we have a whole generation of kids who are growing up who have to manage their parents' emotions for them.

[159] I wasn't planning on saying this, but that is a nasty, nasty thing to give to your kids to put on your kids.

[160] If your kids have to grow up and they know that, well, dad doesn't like it when he's in traffic, dad doesn't like it when certain things go wrong, he gets irritated, he gets gruff.

[161] Well, what happens?

[162] Your kids will start to, without even knowing it, manage their parents' emotions for them.

[163] Well, my mom gets really upset, or she gets really nervous about this, or she gets on me because she's a, well, now you're putting this on your child.

[164] Now your child, in very subtle ways, will begin to act differently, will begin to manage your emotions for you because they know that you can't do it.

[165] And you know what that leads to?

[166] A lot of dependency and a lot of really nasty stuff their entire lives.

[167] And guarantee you a little girl, little boy who grows up managing their dad's emotions, that little girl will end up marrying a, I guarantee you, will end up marrying a man who has the same patterns as her dad because that's what she's familiar with.

[168] Well, my dad had a lot of anxiety and I learned to manage it for him and then he was happy with me and pleased with me. And guess what?

[169] She ends up marrying a man and she ends up managing his anxiety, making sure he never gets upset because then he'll be pleased and he won't be unhappy with me. See how that works.

[170] This is a nasty generational thing, and that's why controlling yourself is so important, and it's not just about you.

[171] It will make your life so much more pleasant.

[172] You will begin to enjoy your life like you have never done before.

[173] Take it out of parenting.

[174] Just make it about your daily life, so you don't have to control everybody else's opinions, and you don't have to prove your point on every form there is about everything going on in society and drive yourself crazy because these other people were so stupid and idiotic and I can't believe they, and you become miserable and you make everybody around you miserable.

[175] But when you can learn how to control yourself, it changes everything.

[176] And then you're able to de -escalate situations instead of always escalating them.

[177] You know, the idea for this podcast came from a dream I had.

[178] I've never done this before on a dream, right?

[179] I had one the other night about a chicken attacking me. I don't know.

[180] Psycho -analyze me. But I don't know.

[181] Psycho -analyze me. But I don't know.

[182] what that one meant but this one dream was very vivid and it was we were out at dinner and there was a kid who started acting up and stomped off stomped off and the dad i could see it in him he wanted to get up immediately and he was going to go and he's going to do what i used to do go after him what are you thinking what do you you know get back to that table and the kid would walk away and you know what the dad's going to do yank his little arm you know why that's kind of stuff i did when Casey was little, right?

[183] And so in this dream, I saw all of this unfolding, and I just reached over to the guy, and I said, listen, I know you don't know me. I don't want to be in your business, but I deal with this stuff all the time.

[184] If you do me a favor in this situation, just de -escalate it.

[185] Just calm the situation down.

[186] And then the dream ended.

[187] And the whole idea behind it that I got was, just de -escalate it right now.

[188] Don't worry about, well, what message are we sending?

[189] How do I discipline?

[190] and how do I get them?

[191] No, for right now, just deescalate.

[192] Because in that situation that you get into, if you go after that kid, you're going to end up yanking his arm or you're going to end up yelling, and you're going to end up embarrassing yourself in front of everybody else, because you're going to find yourself yelling.

[193] So in that moment, what do we do?

[194] I'll give you a few tips here.

[195] One, humility.

[196] All I know is that humility never doesn't work.

[197] Does that, did that make sense?

[198] How about never doesn't?

[199] That's good.

[200] Well, are you an expert?

[201] communicator?

[202] Apparently not.

[203] So humility, let's say it in a different way, always works.

[204] I can't think of a situation when humility, and I'm not talking about getting walked all over.

[205] That's not at all, because that's not humility.

[206] Humility is power.

[207] Humility says, I'm in control of this situation.

[208] Humility says, I'm in power here, but I'm choosing to lay that down and lay down my pride, and I'm choosing to humble myself here because humility breaks down walls with a strong -willed child quicker than anything else.

[209] If you've got a strong will child and you think that you're going to take back control and I'm going to lay down the law, it's going to be my way or the highway, it's the way my dad did it, the way I did it.

[210] If you think you're just going to, well, I'm just going to show them who's in charge.

[211] You're just going to get a bigger fight.

[212] It's the way they are wired.

[213] They will fight you harder.

[214] Humility is a powerful tool.

[215] And you're going to feel weak in the moment and it's antithetical to everything that you've thought.

[216] But I promise if you try it, it will work.

[217] self -control.

[218] Learn how to control yourself.

[219] Learn how to control your anxiety, your control issues, your perfectionism, and everything else that gets triggered.

[220] All the stuff from your childhood.

[221] You've got to learn how to control that.

[222] Otherwise, your kids are going to be in control of you.

[223] True?

[224] Lead your kids.

[225] You lead them to calm.

[226] Learn some good phrases.

[227] It's partly what the CDs programs are about.

[228] Here's one.

[229] You know, if I were you, I'd be frustrated too.

[230] You know how good that feels when you're upset about something?

[231] If someone came along at work or your spouse said, you know, I'd be frustrated too and said, like, I don't know why you're overreacting.

[232] I don't know why you get so upset about this.

[233] Oh, thanks so much.

[234] That helped me feel better.

[235] Right.

[236] No, but saying some simple phrases of identifying, acknowledging them, right?

[237] Here's a good one.

[238] Listen, I know you don't want to be in trouble.

[239] Right.

[240] That's a lot different than like, what were you thinking?

[241] How many times do I have to tell you?

[242] That just incites things, right?

[243] Don't look kids in the eyes when they're upset.

[244] You can fight me on that.

[245] all day long don't do it do not look kids in the eyes when they are upset for the most part that inflames things and makes things worse and you see right down into the little soul and all of their shame it doesn't work in the moment give your kids a job to do right if you're in the middle of the uh at dinner somewhere you can snap at your kids and get on them or you walk over and say hey i want to show you something in the middle of a grocery store right kids are getting upset.

[246] Give them a specific job.

[247] Hey, I need some help.

[248] Could you go to aisle four and see if you could pick out for me?

[249] X. Giving kids jobs gives them something they feel in control of.

[250] It's very, very calming, right?

[251] No matter where you are, I want you to learn how to de -escalate with your tone of voice, with your body posture, by using the humility, right?

[252] Let me give you a couple other ones.

[253] And you're going to hear, that's partly why we want people to listen to our programs, right?

[254] You get the CDs, you get them as downloads.

[255] We've got, if you go to celebrate calm .com, you'll see we're doing a Christmas in July sale.

[256] Why?

[257] This is the middle of the year at the summer.

[258] And this is the best time because, look, you've got time right now.

[259] We don't have school stuff going on.

[260] We don't have all that pressure.

[261] Do it now, because I can guarantee you, this fall is going to be weird because I don't think school's going to go back like it normally was.

[262] We're going to have hybrid schooling.

[263] You're going to have a lot of you're going to be educating your kids at home.

[264] We're going have weird schedules at school.

[265] Stuff is going to be different.

[266] Your kids aren't good with things being different.

[267] And they're going to be even more anxiety.

[268] They're going to be set on edge and they need the adults in their lives to be able to calm them down instead of, you know what, you just need to roll with the punches.

[269] I can't control how the school does it.

[270] No, you need to be the one and the ones who are able to do that.

[271] And I'd rather you work on this now in the middle of the summer so that when late August and September and this fall comes, you know exactly what to do.

[272] And by the way, in the programs.

[273] There's an ADHD university program.

[274] Any of your kids don't have ADHD.

[275] It teaches your kids how their brains are wired and how to do homework and school work better and how to jumpstart their brains.

[276] So let's work on these things.

[277] And what I want you to know is a couple things.

[278] I'm going to close up here is this.

[279] Inside, you have every right to feel angry, irritated, frustrated.

[280] You're like, what the air?

[281] Right?

[282] And you think like, this little kid's being a jerk.

[283] There's nothing wrong with feeling that inside.

[284] That's natural, normal.

[285] Being calm doesn't mean you don't feel things.

[286] You're going to feel things.

[287] You just don't react to them.

[288] Because on the outside, right, I want to learn how to respond instead of react because, look, I want you to deal with the internal stuff before you respond, before you react to it.

[289] Because once you react to this situation, you're done.

[290] Child's in complete control.

[291] What they know is, nobody's in control.

[292] Because I'm not.

[293] out of control, my mom, my dad are out of control.

[294] It's a very unsafe place to be and it will embarrass you in public when you do that.

[295] So know that it's normal to feel frustrated, angry, all those feelings.

[296] But here's what I want to leave you with is this.

[297] For this next week, let's just learn how to calm the situation down.

[298] We will get to discipline later.

[299] We will.

[300] And I'll do a thing on discipline next week.

[301] I have a whole CD program on getting your kids to listen to the first time.

[302] It's on disciplining when consequences don't work.

[303] But here's what I know.

[304] After 27 years of experience as a father, after 20 years of working with almost a million strong well kids and their families, if you lead your child to calm, they will apologize and they will own their own behavior.

[305] They will.

[306] You won't have to lecture.

[307] You won't have to go through all that stuff because they already know what they did was wrong.

[308] Right.

[309] And you don't have to like, you need to apologize right now fine sorry right no if you lead them to calm they'll apologize because your humility will lead them to humility but if you're intent on like always like what were you thinking how are you doing why are you doing that you know we need to have a talk about your behavior i can't right i can't believe that you did that you're never going to be right we say all those things you know what we're doing we're pronouncing judgment on you were a failure in the past you're a failure now and you're going to be a failure in the future because you've always been like this can't ever call yourself down.

[310] How are you ever going to be successful in the future?

[311] And we just condemned a child's past, present, and future.

[312] And if you think that doing that, after doing that, your child's all of a sudden going to want to listen to you and be motivated and do well in life, not going to happen because you just said basically to the kid, what inside their head, why would he even try?

[313] Because I've always been a loser, apparently a loser now, and apparently I'm always going to be that.

[314] And that's all out of your own frustration, and I will promise you, if you will just learn to de -escalate and calm your kids down, they will become calm, they will apologize, they will own their own behavior, they will want to change, and you can then teach them, because discipline means to teach, you can teach them once you're calm.

[315] But as long as you're escalating things, there's no teaching going on.

[316] You don't go to your room for the rest of the week.

[317] You know what, I don't know, no, that's not teaching.

[318] It's just you frustrated, right?

[319] And I get it.

[320] Like I said, you have every right to be frustrated.

[321] You should be frustrated.

[322] See, I'm acknowledging you.

[323] Right?

[324] That, right?

[325] If I were a parent like you, I'd be frustrated too because I was that parent and I'm in then that parent.

[326] I would.

[327] I'm not going to look you in the eyes either, right?

[328] I'm just, I'm letting you know I'd be frustrated too, but I'm just letting you know it doesn't work when you do that.

[329] For the next week, de -escalate, calm things down.

[330] And I promise most of the time, you won't even have to do traditional discipline or get to the consequences because you're going to problem solve with your child because you led them to that space.

[331] If you need help, email us.

[332] This is our family.

[333] It's not a family business.

[334] It's a family passion.

[335] It's our passion of ours.

[336] It's just what we do.

[337] It's what we love doing.

[338] And we're a family.

[339] So like yours.

[340] And so if you need help financially, email Casey.

[341] tell him about your family.

[342] He will listen to you and I'll recommend the right resources.

[343] He'll work within your budget.

[344] In the next couple weeks, probably don't need to worry about the budget too much because we're doing a Christmas sale, Christmas and July sale.

[345] And we've really slashed the prices to help you out.

[346] But if you need extra help, email us and we'll help you out.

[347] I'd ask you to spread the word, share our podcasts with other hurting people.

[348] Every week we're getting almost every day the most common email starts with hey we just found your podcast a friend sent us to us and it's really helping us understand our strong will child so spread the word because we'd love to help more people and if we can if we can help you with anything reach out to us is why we're here next week I will do something on discipline and I'm going to leave it there anyway thank you all enjoy your vacation time your relatives and help the aunts and uncles and your parents understand a different way, send them to the podcast.

[349] Say, look, it's 20 minutes long.

[350] It's not going to hurt you.

[351] You got time.

[352] We're on vacation.

[353] Maybe instead of spending us, maybe, maybe after we go to bed at night and you all sit around and judge us and talk about us, maybe instead you all could listen to a podcast.

[354] Then maybe you'd understand us because we could really use your help with our kids.

[355] So anyway, I'm kind of just kidding with that, but not really.

[356] Because everybody judged us too.

[357] Anyway, thank you.

[358] Love you all.

[359] And we'll talk to you soon.

[360] Bye -bye.