5 Secrets to Prevent School Battles & Motivate Your Kids
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So parents who do not have a strong-willed child or a child on the spectrum, a neurodivergent child, have absolutely no idea what a nightmare the school year can be for so many of you. That there are literally fights going on.

from morning until bedtime which and some of your kids it is a late late bedtime and they don't want to get up in the morning so there's school refusal and anxiety and then fights over school work and some of your kids aren't that great at sports or if they play they're not going to try their hardest

And so the school year can be nothing but a never ending battle. And I really want this year to be very, very different for you. For some of us here in the United States, school has already begun. For a lot of you, it hasn't yet begun.

For our friends in Europe, I know you're on holiday right now, which basically means Germans and Dutch people are everywhere, including out West in the United States. And we love having you here. So I wanted to do this special episode to give you really five different tools so that we can make this school year different than the last one, because sometimes school can be pretty traumatic for a lot of your kids and a lot of you, and it can be traumatic for your family and tear you apart. So

I promise you, I'm going to get in an upcoming podcast, different tools for you. Tools, if you have your kids do homework, I want to give you tools to do homework in a different way, in a way that will really help your kids grow.

to get it done. I want to give you tools for back to school anxiety and school refusal. And I've got a really cool podcast plan for how you can help teachers help your kids. So this is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us at CelebrateCalm.com. Thank you for listening. Let me just roll with this.

So five things. Number one, you get to determine what the school year is like. It is your family. It is no one else's family. Nobody else cares about your kids the way you do. Nobody else. Look, we run around trying to keep up with everybody else's expectations.

other families, your neighbors, school. And yet when your child and your family falls apart because of all those false expectations, they're not there to pick up the pieces. It's you who has to do that. So it is your family. You are responsible for your child's education.

It is not the teachers or the school system or anybody else. It is you. And I want you to be confident in it. You're good, smart parents who love your kids and you know what's best for them. And look, you have different kids. Some of you have a neurotypical kid or a child who just loves school. Good. Have them do extra homework. Feed that. They get a lot of confidence from school. They love it. But most of you have a child who really struggles and you know this child better than anybody else. Trust your instincts on this.

and because it is your family. What I encourage you to do is number one, make a list, get a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle, left-hand side. What are the qualities necessary for success in school? And a lot of that is following rules, listening, memorizing information for tests,

Write that down on the right hand of the sheet. What are the qualities necessary for success in life as an adult? And what you'll find is there's a little bit of overlap, but not always. And so what we focused on was the right side of the sheet because we're not raising kids. We're raising adults to be successful in the adult world. And I'm not going to sacrifice my child's confidence in long-term success

emotional well-being and development on the altar of just trying to do arbitrary things that aren't always important. And that's going to be tough for many of you because a lot of you are people pleasers and you don't want to go against the system sometimes. But it's your kid that you're fighting for. And besides that, I want to raise your kids according to what's best for each of them

And so for me, that right side of the sheet of like, yeah, I want to write in the real world, critical thinking skills, being able to think on your feet, being able to be a good leader, right? Being able to question things, take risks. All those things were very important. Now, here's really a critical thing. Define what you want out of the school year. Now, traditionally, parents are like, well, I want my kids to get good grades. Well,

Well, that wasn't our focus. Our focus was we want to have kids who are curious and who love to learn. And that became our guidepost. We put that up on the refrigerator. Our goal is to have kids who are curious and who love to learn. And anything that comes against that or doesn't feed that goal, uh-uh. We say no to it. We discard it. No arbitrary stuff there. As little as possible.

Because, and we'll get to that in a minute, it's really important. What else do you want? Now, that was the basics out of school, but I want to raise a child who is emotionally healthy, who has a good sense of himself or herself, who's confident, who's socially healthy. And I want to have a family where we're connected and we have fun.

and we laugh together, and we learn together. See, that's the picture that I want because a lot of it, our whole focus is on, uh-oh, what do we need to do to meet the requirements of the school system? And that will take some of you down a path you don't want to go. So define that for your family. Define what you want in your home, what you're going to do and not do.

So for some of you, I really want you to make a list and include this. Moms and dads, what do you want to do for yourself this school year? Everything doesn't have to be about the kids because if it is, you will just get exhausted and resentful. So limit what they do. Hey, you get to choose one extracurricular or

for each semester. I'm not doing the taxi thing of just running endlessly in traffic all the time and we never really get to see each other, enjoy each other as a family. Say no to stuff. I'd encourage you.

Look, moms and dads of strong willed kids, kids on the spectrum, you have to purposefully slow your life down and simplify things because it can guarantee you every afternoon or evening, you're going to have some kind of emotional meltdown, sibling fights, fights over homework. And I want you to have time to actually teach your kids how to handle conflict, how to handle their emotions. It's more important than anything they're going to learn in school.

And so I want them to have time to play. Playing, learning is playing. Playing is learning. And I want them to learn how to make decisions. But we're just going, don't have time, got to do this, got to do this. Okay, go to bed.

And then your kids, that's when they want to talk all the time because we never slow down the rest of the day and it extends bedtime way too long. Slow life down. You know how you learn by making decisions. You don't learn by following rules or following what someone wants you to do. You actually make decisions because then you have to weigh things and prioritize things and you have to make a decision that takes some courage and then you mess up and you have to live with that decision. You have to remedy it.

See, save time for the really important stuff. But you have to, I would make a list of that. Write it on paper so you have a guide for the school year so you don't get swept up in all of the other parents talking about their kids on the honor roll and they're doing all these extracurriculars.

And you're like, well, shouldn't we be able to do piano and soccer and also doing Kuhlman Learning Center? No, you can't do it all. And you shouldn't do it all. By the way, your stronghold kids are largely self-taught kids. They're going to teach themselves how to play instruments like our son did and teach himself. He's fluent in German. He taught himself. They're going to watch YouTube videos and figure that stuff out. So...

Say yes, say no, define what you want. Homework. I'm just going to give you my opinion. I've done this for 25 years. I've worked with almost a million families. I'll tell you what I really think.

It just doesn't matter. I promise you, 15, 20 years from now, you will never say, you know what, I wish we would have fought over homework more. It's not essential. It's not worth the fight. There's literally zero correlation between doing homework as a kid and being successful in life.

I've never met one, and I've met a lot of people around the world. I've never met anybody who said, "You know why I'm successful? Third grade, I crushed my homework." It's not that important. So here's my general guidelines. Under the age of seven, uh-uh. No homework required. Forget that. I just talked to a mom. She emailed. She was like, "Well, my six-year-old son has required reading every night." And I was like,

BS. No, there's no, they can't require you to do that. You're the parent. You don't look, do I want kids to read more than anything? I love kids reading, but

But watch what happens. Well, it's required reading every night. Now you as a parent, especially those who rule followers a little bit, you don't want to cause any problems where you're like, well, well, in order to be a good parent and live up to the expectations, we have to have required reading every night. Now it becomes a chore and your kids can pick up on your pressure. And now it's no longer something that's fun to do or that they actually enjoy. It's a requirement now. No way you can say no to that, right? I, I,

I want little kids... The job description of a young child is to explore and be curious and make messes and do experiments and play and play. And that's how they learn. They have plenty of time to be extra responsible later in life. But when they're little, no way. Just say no to that. Elementary school kids, for me, kind of optional, right?

Look, this is the discussion that we had with especially with Casey's teachers. We said, hey, you know what? We really respect the fact and really appreciate the fact that you love our son so much that you assign homework because you want our son to learn. And we appreciate that. What we want you to know is we...

We will not always complete every homework assignment every night, but we will always be learning and being curious and exploring. So every night in our home, oh, there's learning happening, but it won't always be that worksheet. So we understand if you need to mark our son's grade down because he didn't always do his homework, well,

That's fine with us because we're not about grades. We want to raise a curious child who loves to learn and we want to actually enjoy our family life and teach our kids in all kinds of different ways through life experiences. And so, see, that's a respectful way to talk to your teacher and it actually releases them. Some teachers, we just said, we release you from feeling like you're obligated to assign our child homework.

We love that you love our child, but we're not always getting it done. I love that. There's nothing wrong with doing that at all. And that's okay. And now you're prioritizing. Look, you're modeling for your kids. I have courage and I stand up and I know what's right and I know what's important and I prioritize that. And sometimes I say no to people. And for some of you, that's going to be hard because you're going to let down

a headmaster or a teacher, but you have to watch because if you give into that pressure, you're basically, and this is no blame and no guilt, but just watch, you're sacrificing your child's emotional and mental health on the altar of you not being judged and it being easier for you. I want you to handle the conflict.

especially those who are conflict avoidant, which is me. I had to do that, but I cared more about my son than about what other people thought about me. Trust your instincts. And then older kids, middle school, high school,

Look, my minimal thing is just do the minimal work necessary just to get by. Because here's what I know about you. One day when you get older, you'll get a vision for your life. You're smart enough. You'll just turn it on and then you'll be wildly successful. And I'll come back to that in a few minutes, but that's usually what happens. But I want to encourage you. You, you, you get to determine what your home life and family life are like. And I want you to be courageous and strong in that.

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Number two, if you have one of these kids, you are going to have to accept who they are on a deep, deep level. I don't have time to do all of this, but I remember the exact moment this happened for me. I spent basically the first eight or nine years trying to control Casey and get him to be the kind of kid that I wanted him to be.

And I remember where I was when it finally hit me. It's not that kid. I didn't get the kid that I necessarily wanted or thought that I needed. And it hit me. I need to accept my son as he is. I'm not going to change his nature. I want you to accept the fact that your kids are going to take a different path.

You're not going to change their nature. And I want to encourage you. I've been through this a lot with families over 25 years. There are a lot of your kids who are just going to do the minimal work necessary to get by. But you know inside this, they're bright. And if they ever turned it on, they could catch up. They could do like three years worth of school in one year. And they could get all A's if they cared about it and they wanted. Some of these kids are going to do the minimal work necessary.

Then they're going to mature and they're going to grow up. And one day they're going to get a vision for their life. And that's when they're going to go to college and they will crush it. Some of your kids, not many, but some of your kids...

Best thing they could do when they're 16 is drop out of school, get their GED, and start working a full-time job because they're really good at full-time jobs. They like to work, but they just don't like school. They're bright enough, but they do that. And guess what? They can start going to a community college and start accumulating credits. It is a smart thing to do. I was just working with a family the other day, and the child said, Mom, Dad, I don't want to go to college yet.

for your college because I don't know what I want to do and I don't want to waste time and money and the parents were like well but we really want him to go and I was like you're not even listening to him he just made a very wise smart statement that he's not ready and he doesn't want to waste your time and money so you have to accept the fact that your kids are in a different path and the term we often use is releasing them and

There is a very powerful moment that comes when you release your strong-willed neurodivergent child to be the child they're supposed to be, not the one that you wanted and not the one that makes you comfortable. And if you have our No BS program, please go through that because we do this in several different ways. It's very, very powerful. Number three, I love this one.

Some of us have to apologize to our kids and it sounds like this. "Son, daughter, I need to apologize to you for the first 7, 9, 12, 16, 17 years of your life. I have tried to convince you and sometimes even force you to care about the things that I care about, to be motivated by things that motivate me.

And I think in a subtle way, I've sent the message that I really wanted you to be more like your sister or like your classmates or more like us. And in doing so, in a way, I disrespected you as an individual. I denied your autonomy and your individuality because I didn't listen to you. I was too consumed with projecting my own anxiety about your future on you

and my own fears that I didn't listen to you. And so I want to apologize to you. Look, you don't have to do that whole thing at once, but that is a very powerful message to send to your child. An apology is not groveling. I have been such a bad, it's not all. It's a statement of fact. This is what has happened. This is probably how it's made you feel. And I am sorry for that. I apologize because I accept that you have a different path and I'm going to get behind that. Number four,

Spark internal motivation. So here's a three-step process. I'm gonna do it very quickly number one Identify and write down your child's natural gifts talents and passions. What are they really good at when they were a younger kid? What were they good at? What did they enjoy doing? Doesn't include video games, right? But what do they love doing their natural giftings? Who do they connect well with some of your kids? It's little kids. It's animals. It's older people step number two is

Find ways for your kids to use their natural gifts, talents, and passions outside the home, at school, in the community, for a neighbor. And number three, accountable to another adult. Other adults can do two things for your kids that you can't do. One, they see good things in your kids because they don't have to tell your kids to brush your teeth and go to school and go to bed and do all those things. They tend to see your kids with fresh eyes and they can hold your kids accountable in ways that you can't.

So let me give you an example of these three steps. So I was working with this family. The mom said, oh, our 12-year-old daughter, Rebecca, she's got a bad attitude. She's not motivated, doesn't do schoolwork. What consequence can we give her to motivate her?

You can't give a consequence to someone who doesn't have a vision for their life or who feels bad about themselves. There's no consequences going to fix that. You have to spark something inside. So I said, mom, dad, here's what I want you to do. You go in your, this is what I know about your daughter. I said, what does she love doing? Who does she connect with? And they were like, love soccer, good with younger kids. So,

Go in the community, find a coach who is coaching younger kids and go up and say, hey, I've got this daughter, loves soccer, amazing with little kids, looks like you need some help. Could you ask our daughter, would it be okay if our daughter came and helped you out with practice on Tuesday night? It's always helpful if another adult safely can ask your child to come help them. If it's mom or dad's idea, oh, honey, I think it would be a great idea if you, I'm out.

But if another adult asks them, they feel more like a grown-up. So this coach says, Rebecca, I could use your help. Tuesday, 6 o'clock, be at the soccer field. Rebecca goes out there that night. She's great at it. She loves it. At the end of the night, she gets hugs from 12 little girls. Why? Little girls love the older girl.

Rebecca comes home that night. Does she have a bad attitude? No. Why? Because someone drew on her gifts. Another person saw something good in her because all she's known her whole life is you need to study harder. You need to apply yourself. You never do this. You don't do that. And someone finally saw the good things.

Now, the coach also said, hey, Saturday morning, we've got a game. I need your help. Rebecca goes, helps out, loves it, really good. At the end of the game, two sets of parents came up and said, hey, we don't really know you, Rebecca, but our daughters talk about you all the time. They're struggling in school. Would you consider tutoring or mentoring our daughters?

not knowing that Rebecca has not done schoolwork for years. But now Rebecca's motivated. Why? Because the coach says, and the parents say, hey, if you want to mentor and tutor these girls and keep working for me, volunteering, working for me, you've got to keep a B average, got to do your chores, no mouthing off to your mother.

Rebecca is motivated now. Why? Because she wants to work with the kids. Because she's got a gift with those kids. She doesn't want to do her schoolwork because of parents or teachers or anything else. But now she has a reason, something she cares about. She will do her homework. Will she do it with a good attitude? Probably not. I don't need a good attitude. Just get your chores done. Get your homework done. I don't care if you have a good attitude. Just get them done.

That's an example of sparking internal motivation. We've done that with kids who are really good at drawing and they get trouble for drawing all day at school, but they're kind of born architects. And we go and we find an architect to say, hey, my son's really good at this. He can see in three dimensions. Could he come to your office one day? Will you teach him what it takes to be an architect? And invariably they find a mentor who says, hey, you've got a gift for seeing in three dimensions. I think you could be a good architect. So I want you to come into my office today.

A couple days a week, you're going to do some grunt work, change my trash, do all kinds of the hard work, but I'll teach you how to read blueprints. And by the way, you're going to take off that hoodie and you're putting on a shirt and tie when you come to my office. And now that child starts to get a vision for his life and someone else is talking to him or her about college instead of parents.

And then third example is a common one with the kids who love animals. Take them to a local vet and say, hey, free labor. My son, my daughter will love to clean out the dog's cages and all their poop and everything else. And along the way, you know what happens? That veterinarian looks and says, you've got a gift with animals.

You're really good at this you could be a veterinarian one day and you know what's sad Nobody else has ever said that to this child because they never got good grades because they just weren't motivated and now this daughter comes home says mom Veterinarian said I could be a vet one day and the parents like we didn't even think you're gonna make it out of middle school But now this girl has a vision for her life and she will do her schoolwork because it's something she cares about and

A lot of this is discovering what your kids care about. Number five. Sorry this is so fast, but I'm trying to fit a lot in. Control your own anxiety about your child's future. It's what we talk about all the time. You really, really, really have to get out of your own fear and your own anxiety about what's going to happen to your child because they pick on

up on that and then it causes you to lecture and when you lecture you only pick out all the negative things until your kids finally figure out I can never please you you're never happy with me and the type a parents you're freaks man you're like me you're so successful because of your type a personality and traits but what happens is you impose that on these kids and they'll always do the opposite it's too much pressure they can't please you so you've got to control that and anxious parents out there

You've got to learn how to put on that confident even matter-of-fact tone so you can impart that into your kids and

If you do have our programs, I would go through the 30 Days to Calm program, the No BS program. It's fantastic. Strong Willed Child program, ADHD University for knowing how their brains work so you can help them in school, and then the Motivating Unmotivated Kids program. Listen to those. Really dig into those. They will help. If you don't have them, well, you should. Just go to the website. There's a summer sale there.

Get them, and if you need help financially, reach out to our son Casey, C-A-S-E-Y, at CelebrateCalm.com, and we'll help you financially with that. We want you to have the tools.

Look, thank you for this. I know parenting, raising a strong-willed child, this is hard. And the school year can be really traumatic for many of you. Let's make this school year different. Let's have the courage to do this. So I want you to go through these steps. Write them down. I'll just do it really quickly. You determine what the school year is like. What do you really want? Define it. What are you going to do? What aren't you going to do? Accept that your child has a different path and they're going to be fine on this path.

It just looks different from all the other kids. Apologize if necessary. Apologize for dumping all of your anxiety onto them, for micromanaging them. Apologize. Statement of fact.

Spark that internal motivation and then work on your own control anxiety. Moms and dads, I really appreciate you listening. I appreciate you sharing the podcast. I appreciate all of you who are on Instagram, who interact with me there. I know this is hard. And if we can help you in any way, let us know. But we love you all. And we'll talk to you soon. Bye-bye.