“I Boil With Anger When My Son Does This…”

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[22] So how do you respond when your kids are disrespectful, right?

[23] You ask them a question and they've got tone and they've got attitude.

[24] What do you do when that happens?

[25] or what do you do when your kids aren't even motivated by things or when you're just like boiling with anger at them?

[26] How do you handle that in a way that's constructive?

[27] That's what we're going to talk about today on the Calm Parenting podcast.

[28] So we're glad you're here.

[29] This is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm.

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

[31] If you need help with anything, email our son Casey, C -A -S -E -Y at Celebrate Calm .com, and he'll help you out.

[32] By the way, we just got an email last night from a guy.

[33] It's like 1030 at night.

[34] Casey's visiting.

[35] It was cool we got back from dinner well we weren't out that late because I'm getting older but we got back from dinner and we're sitting around talking we get an email from a gentleman he's like hey it's my birthday and I really want to change and I found that I'm not really good at handling my emotions and so I'm not teaching my four kids how to do that and I was wondering could I want to get everything you have a package called to get everything package but I was wondering could you give me a birthday discount.

[36] And I want you to know, like here, our initial reactions that isn't like, oh, great, he's trying to save money.

[37] He's like, no, I love that.

[38] I like assertive people.

[39] I like, like, like, this guy was open and honest and vulnerable about the issues.

[40] And he just said, hey, can I get a birthday discount?

[41] And we're like, all over that.

[42] And so we're emailing back and forth.

[43] And I'm going to commit to helping this guy because he's literally changing the entire course of his kids' lives.

[44] He's going to impact their when they become a husband and a dad themselves or become a wife and a mom to their kids this dad by having the courage to change and and learn things right like I didn't learn this stuff till I was like 38 and 40 and this dad is like having to wrestle with all this stuff and he's realizing it's not just my kids issue it's me it's my own stuff I brought from my childhood and my generational patterns and I'm going to have the courage to change now he literally changes the lives of his kids and so many other people not just his own family is going to totally change his entire life because that's what has happened to me and it's awesome so if we can ever help you with anything email us right reach out to us and tell us about your family we'll put together the best resources for you so first email is this this is a cool one So this was November 19th, 2017.

[45] I get this email.

[46] Hey, I understand I'm supposed to help my twin son learn how to manage, deal with his emotions, but sometimes I get so mad at him because I'm trying so hard to keep calm and not yell or say something inappropriate that I can't even help my son with his angry feelings because I'm so angry and all I can do is walk away and do something else to calm down, right?

[47] Because I can feel that anger boiling inside of me. And so here was my response and the theme today we're going to hit on several different things but this because the theme today is kind of no BS because I've been doing this 20 years and I know people are really comfortable with black and white stuff well you just tell your child the way it is if he doesn't like it then give him a consequence you show him who's boss well that's awesome except it doesn't work for his strong will kids because they don't care about consequences and the moment you start going all tough with them you lose control of yourself right so I came up with this program because people said like, we need an instruction manual.

[48] So I created one, the no BS instruction manual in which I could deal with things head on, things that you don't always want to hear, but will save you a lot of power struggles and trouble.

[49] Like the fact that your strong will kids probably aren't going to pick up all their Legos when they're little, and they're not going to clean up after themselves when they cook for you.

[50] And you're going to get all frustrated about the fact that most of your kids are not going to do their chores really well, but they will be awesome for other people.

[51] Just knowing that going in, you will save literally years of power struggles and stand blade tonight talking to your spouse.

[52] Like, what are we going to do?

[53] Because our child doesn't want to do his chores.

[54] If he's not responsible for us, how is he going to be responsible for anybody else?

[55] So we've got to fight him and then it's not fair to the other siblings.

[56] And you go through all that stuff and everybody's miserable.

[57] And instead, if what I was able to do was put together a program with 25 action steps and to be able to tell people, no, you're not, don't worry about that.

[58] You're worrying about the wrong thing.

[59] That I understand why you're upset.

[60] I understand why you're anxious, but don't be worried about that.

[61] That's not something to be worried about because your kids probably won't be that awesome for you, but they will be amazing for other people, and that's what you ultimately want in life.

[62] And part of the reason I want to do no BS is because this stuff is not black and white.

[63] The next example, I'm going to show you why.

[64] It's hard stuff.

[65] And just, anyway, so what I replied back to the mom, I just said, I'm going to go with my gut instant.

[66] I think you're taking his behavior too personally.

[67] You're too wrapped up in his success and his behavior that it's making you mad.

[68] And so in reality, look, there's no blame or no guilt.

[69] Please understand we don't do blame or guilt.

[70] This has nothing to do with your son, but it has everything to do with you, which is good because you're the only one that you can control.

[71] And so you have complete control over this situation, not by controlling your child, but by controlling yourself.

[72] It's really cool how that works.

[73] So I asked her like, why does his behavior make you so mad?

[74] When he does do something wrong, what can you begin doing differently?

[75] I'd spend time getting to the root of your own reactions to him so that you don't take it personally.

[76] Well, I didn't hear back from that mom until the other day.

[77] And here's what she said.

[78] Hey, Kirk, I wanted to thank you almost three years later for answering my question.

[79] You are right.

[80] I did take everything my son did personally.

[81] And I would encourage you moms and dads, don't take it personally.

[82] If you want number one lesson for today's podcast, don't take things personally.

[83] It's not about you.

[84] It's about helping your child.

[85] You're the grown adult, right?

[86] I knew that on, I knew that on some level, but to hear you say that was a hard pill to swallow.

[87] Things are much better between me and my son, and I'm a much calmer parent now.

[88] kudos mom well done this stuff takes time and time is your friend space the other thing i'd write down in fact i'm going to make notes on this right now is the first thing we talked about is don't take it personally because i'll turn this into the newsletter that goes with this podcast and you can sign up for that at celebrate calm .com or contact gasey for it don't take it personally what i try to do is encapsulate it in a few bullet points so you get quick written because some people like to hear it, but they also like to see things written down.

[89] Like when we give you a script in the newsletter, it's all free.

[90] I try to write out the script so you have it.

[91] And some people keep a like a calm folder.

[92] And then when they're going through something, they pull it up and they can be like, oh, here's that script that I need to use.

[93] Time is your friend, right?

[94] Let your kids grow into themselves.

[95] Let you grow into yourself, right?

[96] So a cool little thing with Casey that happened.

[97] Ten years ago, he was 17, but when he was about 16, he started doing school assemblies all across the country.

[98] And what was really novel about it was it wasn't just like some kind of adult that acted cool, coming in and doing the school assemblies, trying to act cool for the kids, so they'd relate to him.

[99] No, it was an actual kid doing it.

[100] So he was only a few years older than them.

[101] And he was actually very good for an early age, but I would be on stage with him.

[102] And so one of the things we've always tried to do is practice what we preach.

[103] And actually it's usually different.

[104] it's actually, we actually do it first and then we teach it, right?

[105] So all of this is very, very personal for us.

[106] It's all things we've been through.

[107] So one of our key principles is when you step back, writing that down, it gives kids space to step up.

[108] When you step back from lecturing, micromanaging, fixing everything for your kids, taking things too personally, when you step back from that, it actually gives kids space so that they can step up and own it themselves.

[109] So one day, this was in Long Island, we pull up to this school.

[110] And I said, case, guess what?

[111] I'm not going in today.

[112] He's like, Dad, come on.

[113] Dad, look, Dad, look, I need you there.

[114] And I was like, I don't think you need me there.

[115] I think you're perfectly capable of doing this yourself.

[116] But, Dad, would you just come in and be there in case I stumble?

[117] It's like, nope, you're on your own.

[118] So I can tell he's upset at me. And he's already anxious going in, right?

[119] So he could never eat the morning before an assembly.

[120] I used to love that because I was.

[121] I I suffered from that for decades, really for years.

[122] And so he went in, and I sat out in the car.

[123] I remember, I sat out in the car in front of the school underneath a tree.

[124] I don't remember why, but I had the windows down.

[125] I was thinking the whole time.

[126] I hope he's doing well.

[127] I really want my son to do well.

[128] And so he comes walking out.

[129] I was kind of cringing.

[130] I didn't know.

[131] And he goes, dad, opens the car door.

[132] He's like, dad, best school assembly ever.

[133] I gave him a little fist bump.

[134] And it was because he wasn't held back by me. and he had to pull on all of his resources inside.

[135] So I just encourage you, step back so your kids can step up.

[136] Allow them to fail times.

[137] That's a really good lesson.

[138] And by the way, it's 10 years later.

[139] You know what he did?

[140] So we can't do school assemblies live right now because you can't assemble.

[141] And so school's been asking, like, can we get your stuff?

[142] So Casey went out, recorded like five, six different sessions on school.

[143] screens, controlling your emotions, impulse control, focus and attention, all those things in different settings.

[144] So we put together a really cool video, right, that you, so it moves, it goes in short little segments, so kids will listen, right?

[145] And it's awesome on all the major stuff, and he did a really awesome job with it.

[146] So here's what's cool.

[147] Schools are using that now in a couple ways.

[148] One, they can show it to their entire student body.

[149] They can show just the first grade, just the second grade, just to middle school, however you want to use it.

[150] And individual teachers are actually using the videos, they'll take like a little five -minute segment on focus and attention and say, okay, so this young guy's talking about using multi -sensory stimulation or doing different things to focus better or impulse control, how do you guys want to use it?

[151] So it's really, really cool how that's happening.

[152] So if you're interested, just go to the website, look under school assemblies and you'll see a brief promo video case he put together.

[153] You can forward that to your school to the PTA.

[154] And if you have questions, just email Casey.

[155] Celebrate Calm .com.

[156] But give your kids some space.

[157] Third thing we're going to talk about.

[158] This is a good example.

[159] So this mom finds her son's shirt covered in paint.

[160] To her credit, she was not mad.

[161] But she went and said, hey, your shirt's covered in paint.

[162] Do you want to keep it?

[163] Well, he grumbled at her.

[164] Well, of course, she took that personally.

[165] Of course.

[166] Makes sense.

[167] And heard it as disrespectful.

[168] And she replied, and she's like, but honey, it's, you know, it's so soft.

[169] It's one of your favorites.

[170] And the son replied back, I said no. Now, that's disrespectful.

[171] That's not the kind of tone that you use with your mom or your dad, because he's treating her like she's some annoying, you know what.

[172] And mom doesn't want to take that because her anxiety kicks in and she starts to fear he'll be like that with the boss one day, so she marches in to talk to him about his tone.

[173] Well, here's what I know from doing this for 20 years.

[174] When in the history of the world has it ever worked when someone said, we need to talk about your tone right now, young man, your young woman?

[175] Does that ever work?

[176] No. Look, if you're going to do this, just cut to the chase and say this instead.

[177] Hey, we're going to talk about your attitude and here's what's going to happen.

[178] You're going to get worse attitude and I'm going to react to it every time and then I'm going to have a bad attitude.

[179] We're both going to have a bad attitude and we're going to yell at each other and say things that we don't mean and we're both going to pull apart from each other, feel bad about what we just did, nothing will get resolved only will both be guilty of being disrespectful and rude each other.

[180] You ready?

[181] Because that's what happens every single time.

[182] Right.

[183] So he reacted.

[184] She pushed and pushed her away.

[185] She reacted and an escalated, right?

[186] So here's the hard question.

[187] Here's kind of the no BS part of this.

[188] Was the child wrong?

[189] Yes.

[190] He was wrong.

[191] He was wrong.

[192] He was disrespectful.

[193] Was the mom wrong to talk to him about his attitude?

[194] No, she wasn't wrong at all, right?

[195] And so here's where the no BS comes in.

[196] The truth is, the no BS answer is the mom did handle it in the wrong way.

[197] And I'm going to show you why in a second, because I don't want these things to continue to escalate.

[198] But the kid was wrong, yes.

[199] And so your nice black and white answer is well, if the kid would have just answered respectfully, like, no, ma 'am or yes, ma 'am, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

[200] And I get that.

[201] I'm with you on that.

[202] But the truth is, he did answer her honestly, and she didn't listen to him.

[203] She was as disrespectful to him as he was to her, and possibly even more so.

[204] And here's why.

[205] And this is not about blame or guilt.

[206] This is just a about how to communicate and resolve these issues so you're not always fighting all the time so when she said like honey a shirt has paint on it do you want the shirt he's no i don't want it well the truth is he was embarrassed i guarantee you he just he didn't want to talk about it you know why because he was anticipating the lecture that he got in the past 342 times you know i've told you when you paint you never use this good shirt you always put an old shirt when you paint i want you to paint outside and when you do because that's what we do we just talk and talk and talk and lecture a million times and then when they do it wrong, we just keep going and keep going and keep going and we reinforced the shame.

[207] And he was embarrassed that he got pain on it.

[208] It was his favorite shirt.

[209] So he said no and wanted to drop it.

[210] Mom, though, didn't listen to him because she kept going and she's trying too hard, right?

[211] Because the truth is, mom didn't want to get rid.

[212] The truth is mom didn't want to get rid of the shirt.

[213] Why?

[214] Because it's so soft and lovely, right?

[215] But he didn't want it and so she started talking too much and trying to convince him to keep it even after he said no i don't want it that's equally disrespectful and it's annoying when your parents don't listen to you and keep going on and on that is not teaching that's annoying and that's disrespectful and if you're going to ask your child what they think then listen to them and don't try to convince them that they're wrong.

[216] So again, no blame and no guilt.

[217] She didn't really do anything wrong, but she didn't handle it the right way.

[218] So what do you do the next time?

[219] You ask, you listen, and you respect the answer even if you don't like it.

[220] And that negative disrespectful tone, ignore it, be the grown -up.

[221] In our curriculum, you'll hear we talk about.

[222] Ignore initial bluster, right?

[223] Because if you're just going to react to it every time, then again, just wake your child up and say, hey, at some point today, you're going to be upset, frustrated, or embarrassed by something, and use a disrespectful tone, and I'm going to get really upset about it, and we're going to have a big, long talk about it, and go on too long, and then we're going to end up hating each other, because that's kind of what happens, right?

[224] So it's, so I ignore a little bit of that, right?

[225] Is that the right thing to do?

[226] I don't know, but I think it is, and that's my no BS answer to it, because otherwise you're just going to fight their entire childhood.

[227] Keep building on the positives.

[228] Deescalate it.

[229] Ignore, swallow it.

[230] And I told this mom, I was like, next time, just text me. That little, blah, da, la, text me. Tell me what a little jerky is.

[231] I don't care.

[232] Get it off your chest to me, but not to him, but don't react.

[233] Because here's what mom could have done.

[234] She could have said, later, after giving him some space, texted him, or just said by walking by his room, Hey, just wanted to double check before I throw away your shirt.

[235] I left it on your bed and you can either keep it or just throw it on the floor by the trash can and I'll come grab it later.

[236] Just let me know.

[237] Right, so I'm not making a big deal of it because now I'm giving the child space to change his mind because maybe he does want to keep it.

[238] And once you de -escalate it, here's what you're probably going to hear.

[239] Hey, Mom, you know what truth is that was one of my favorite shirts and I'm embarrassed because I didn't listen to you and I painted in that shirt and then I got pain on it and I was really angry at myself.

[240] I was really angry and I was beating myself up because I ruined my favorite shirt and I was embarrassed and I'd be embarrassed to keep it because it's just an ongoing sign of my failure and I already feel like I'm dumb and stupid sometimes.

[241] So I just want to be done with it and I didn't want to talk about it.

[242] And so I'm sorry that I yelled at you is just that I was embarrassed.

[243] Right.

[244] When you de -escalate and you calm things down and you don't respond to that initial bluster, See if this makes sense.

[245] I'm going to make a note on this.

[246] See, what happens is we reply to the initial bluster, right?

[247] We just fly off the hand.

[248] And then we never get into anything good because now we just sent the child to his room because he can't talk to you the right way and you're angry at him.

[249] But when we de -escalate, then we get to the humility.

[250] Then we get to the contrition.

[251] But you've got to get to that place and that takes time and that takes space.

[252] Does that make sense?

[253] I hope it makes sense.

[254] because I may just let me see where we are we're 18 minutes in I think I'm going to end on that because I like that one I want to give you a challenge this week when your child responds disrespectfully I want you to like walk away I want you to come back later and use the I'm curious tone and I want to see if you can lead them to a calmer place lead them to a place of humility we talk about that a lot and I put that in my notes as well lead to a place of humility because then you can get to a problem solving place.

[255] I guarantee with your kids being home and all the different kinds of weird COVID schooling stuff because we're going through that in the school boot camp stuff, it's just different for every family and every school district's a little different.

[256] They are going to be frustrated and they're not going to do all of their work and they're going to cut corners and they're not going to push through and all those things.

[257] But if you just react to it, it's just going to make it worse every time.

[258] So this week, let's work on this.

[259] that not reacting in that moment, creating some space, and then humbly leading them to a space where they say things like, I'm just frustrated because I'm already behind in school and I feel like once I'm behind, I can't catch up.

[260] Let's see if we can get there this week.

[261] If we can help you do that, reach out to Casey, C -A -S -E -Y, celebrate calm .com.

[262] We will help you.

[263] If you are in that place where you've got older kids and the relationship is really kind of ruined, I would look at the no BS instruction manual.

[264] It's right on the website.

[265] No BS.

[266] It's $99.

[267] If you want everything we have, emails.

[268] Tell us about your family.

[269] We'll tell you if you need that or if we give you the calm parenting package.

[270] Everything's on sale right now.

[271] If you need help with the schooling stuff, do the boot camp.

[272] And by all means, check out the school assembly page because it would be a great gift to give to your school to be able to let them know that there's something out there.

[273] There's a kid talking to other kids that's really powerful.

[274] It's on their school assembly.

[275] So if we can help you, let's know.

[276] We love you all.

[277] Thank you for being a good parent.

[278] Bye -bye.