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Do you have a child who is defiant, who doesn't listen, who swears, who lashes out at others and even at himself? Well, this is really common with strong-willed kids, so you're not alone. I want to give you a different way of viewing this behavior on today's episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast. So welcome, this is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us at Celebrate Calm.
Reach out to us. Let us know what your strong-willed child or child on the spectrum is struggling with. You can email Casey, C-A-S-E-Y, at CelebrateCalm.com. Tell us the ages of your kids, what are they struggling with? We get together as a family, talk about it, reply back to you personally, because that's our family mission. So we get a lot of emails expressing a common dynamic, and here's a recent one. Even if it's not exactly what your child struggles with,
you can take these principles and apply them to your situation. So here's the email, it's very common. My son is swearing and being aggressive toward his siblings. He gets sent to his room and I can hear him muttering about what a bad kid he is
How can we get him to stop swearing? My son won't listen to me and his father is too rough with him and just escalates situations. And here's what's interesting to me.
is that we as parents often and usually get sidetracked by the wrong issues. And I'm not judging because this is really hard to deal with when you're in the midst of it. But listen to the question, right? Like you get sent to his room. I can hear him muttering what a bad kid is. He's swearing and being aggressive. Well, what pops out to me right away is,
I'm not really concerned about the swearing. I'm really concerned about what's going on underneath, right? Because it's always about how we can get our child to stop what? Swearing, lying. That's a big one that many of you struggle. Our child lies all the time. The lying is not the issue.
It's not an integrity issue. I've been through this a lot. Lying comes from a kid who feels like he can never be successful, and he knows if he is held accountable and if he gets caught, well, then he's going to lose his stuff. So in order to avoid losing stuff, what do you end up doing? You lie. The lying isn't the issue. It's an impulse control issue. It's a tools issue. So whatever the issue is that you're dealing with,
This is how I want to begin to approach this.
One, the swearing doesn't matter. The lying doesn't matter. It's pretty much irrelevant because that's just an outward manifestation, right? Outward behavior is an outward manifestation of something internal going on, of internal anger, confusion, turmoil, frustration, right?
So I want us to get away from always reacting to the outward behavior. How can we stop that outward behavior? That's not what we're after. It's what can we do inside of our child? What tools can we give him to be successful? That's how we deal with outward behavior. And beyond that, it is,
What can we do inside of this child to help them feel confident, to have purpose, to have a reason, to deal with the internal anger? Because when you're hearing these things like swearing,
It really should be little alarm bells going off, not about the outward behavior. The alarm bells are saying, something's going on inside my child, and I need to get to the root of it. So what I'm most concerned about is, why is your child angry and frustrated? Why is he angry at siblings, and why is he taking this out on himself? What is prompting this?
So a little side note, I was doing a phone consultation with some parents, and this was a little while ago, who had mentioned that recently their son had begun lashing out at everyone around him. And sometimes I go for a walk before I talk to parents, and I just kind of think about the situations. I try to picture these things to get insight.
For whatever reason, I had this brief flash in my brain of a kid getting picked on at school. When I began the call, I said, hey, I know you didn't mention this in your summary you filled out, but I just want to play a hunch. Has your son been getting bullied at school? There was complete silence on the other end. They were like, oh, we forgot to include that. Here's why that was important.
Bullying can cause a child to feel shame inside because he or she doesn't know how to deal with it. And there's shame for allowing yourself to be bullied. And so a child will turn that in on himself and then lash out at others because he's confused.
He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know how to bring it up to parents, which is another reason that we, including dads, have to create that safe space for kids so they can come and tell us anything without us reacting, without talking too much, without lecturing. And I think this dynamic will resonate with many of you as well because you were bullied, so to speak, by a controlling, authoritarian, or religious parent.
And, or you now are married to someone who is controlling.
And it makes you feel helpless. And it's that insidious thing inside of us that causes you to even turn that on yourself. And now you're beating yourself up for allowing that to happen and for perpetuating it. And I want us to be free from these patterns. This year of 2024 is going to be some deep work. I don't know why. It just is. Because I'm doing some deep work on myself. And that's part of why I love this is that
I'm changing along with you and I really work at this so that hopefully I can go through the really hard work myself first and then kind of lead you along in that. And I hope I always do it without any blame, without any guilt or judgment, but always very direct, right? Like, hey, you got to grow up.
quit doing that. It's hurting you. It's hurting your family. Stop it. Because that's how I talk to myself, right? Like this isn't good for me. So I'll be kind to myself while I go through this and forgiving of myself. But I'm also ruthless in saying, no, I want to root this out of me. I want to reduce my attachment to this so that I can be free of
it because when I'm free of all these other things, man, I'm so much better for all of those people around me that I love. So I want to get to the root of it and forgive my language, but sometimes you have to get indignant and use some intensity here to say, you know what? No effing way. This is not happening anymore. This changes now.
Again, not meant to be offensive there, but there's something about that indignant tone that says, you know what, no effing way. I'm tired of this happening.
And you could even actually use the real F word if you want. I don't think anybody's gonna be upset at you. I'm certainly not. It just is some intensity. So up to you how you handle that. I don't have a problem with it. So if you wanna, one of my favorite things is getting emails from really sweet parents and especially those of you with kind of a Christian or religious background when you've kind of finally had enough and you start dropping some F bombs. And I'm like, you know what? I think she's on the path to recovery.
So it takes resolute focus and courage. Now that was a long side note, but hopefully it helped a few of you.
So back to our main point. I don't care about the swearing. I care about the aggression toward his siblings and toward himself. Because look, the aggression toward the siblings is really only happening because there's aggression toward himself inside. When I don't feel good about myself, when I feel helpless, when I feel frustrated,
I'm actually gonna take that out on other people. And in separate podcasts, I've gone through how to handle that with siblings, but I wanna stay focused here on this. You can tell when I get that email, you can tell there's a lot of anger, there's frustration. And I wanna use a different word that I haven't used a lot in our podcast before, confusion. There's confusion churning in the heart and mind of a kid. And my experience tells me,
that issues like this usually stem from unhealthy relationships. My gut tells me this is a boy who's been treated roughly by his father, and that is the man who's supposed to be a boy's dad, his mentor, a hero of sorts. A lot of us look up, we want our dad to be that hero.
And yet he's, the dad is opposite of that. The father yells at him. He's constantly correcting his son. It's negative, it's critical. He doesn't come alongside and teach. So here we have a young child who is confused, angry, and frustrated by this.
but he can't take it out on his father because his father's too big and scary. See, it's one of the things we do as men that we don't realize. We become gruff. We get dismissive. We withdraw. We make ourselves unavailable because...
Because when we're available, that means we're a little bit vulnerable. We're not always comfortable with that. And again, I've done this on recent podcasts, but please redefine your definition of an authority figure. Because some of you grew up with the authority figure was a controlling, my way or the highway kind of father or mother.
And that was my experience with my dad. Or maybe you grew up in a Christian or religious circle where God was like an angry factory foreman who just walked around, PO'd at everybody, correcting everybody. And if they didn't do it right, he was going to send them to eternal hell. Well, that's not a really approachable kind of authority figure. So we really need to redefine what that is. And I've mentioned this on previous podcasts. Look, a good authority figure
sets firm boundaries. He's very clear with things, but he's also easily approachable. And we have to avoid these two extremes of a good authority figure. There's nothing that should lead anyone to believe that a good authority figure would ever be abusive or controlling. There's no need for that. I'm a dad. I don't need to be abusive or controlling. I also don't need to get walked on either because we go to those two extremes. Right in between there is
a good authority figure who models things, who knows how to control himself. My son can come to me at any time with any problem now, and we can have a discussion about it. And I can also at times say, hey, give this some thought because I think you're missing the mark here. You're off a little bit in your thinking. Think about this. And I can provide wisdom and perspective that he actually receives from me. And when he comes to me, I don't get defensive and I don't shut him down. So...
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So there's a boy, a little girl, who can't take their anger and frustration out on their father because sometimes we're kind of too big and scary. So what happens? The child will naturally turn this confusion and anger on whom? On his or her siblings.
their mother and on themselves and we don't want that now it doesn't always play out like this but it usually does and what we discover by the end of this interaction and I have with parents is that it really has nothing to do with bad behavior whether that's swearing or aggression lying fill in the blank it has
nothing to do with bad behavior, and everything to do with a broken relationship because it is relationships that change behavior. Consequences are very, very limited in their behavior.
in their effectiveness. But you change a relationship, that changes the heart. It changes motivation. It changes everything. And if you fix the relationship, the bad behavior, that
outward behavior will begin to dissipate and go away. But if you don't fix the relationship, the behavior will actually intensify. And what's happening is the child, look, your kids don't have the maturity yet because look, most of us are adults and we don't have the maturity yet. We're still discovering this stuff ourselves, but they don't have the maturity to come say, mother, father,
I'm feeling very confused. I'm feeling very angry and frustrated. And I don't understand this situation. Could we have a talk about it? They don't know how to say that. So they just begin reflexively acting out. And the behavior intensifies because, hey...
I'm trying to get your attention here. You're not listening. You keep talking to me about my behavior. My behavior has nothing to do with the issue. I'm trying to get your attention that something else is going on, but I don't know how to handle it. So that's part of why it's so important for us to
Look, the whole idea of being calm is not an end in itself. My goal is not to be Gandhi. I don't really care to be like a monk in a monastery somewhere in the Swiss Alps. Look, put me by myself, I'm very calm.
I'm an awesome person. It's just when you put me in with other irritating people who have lots of emotions, who trigger me, well, that's the real test, right? And so...
That's the whole idea of calm is it's not the end goal. It's a means to handling situations better, to stepping back so I'm not triggered. Oh my gosh, my child is lying. They have an integrity issue. What's going to happen to them in life?
It has nothing to do with that. Oh my gosh, my child is swearing. Oh no, he's swearing. What are we going to do with him swearing? And then when you're calm and when you can step back, you can say, oh, okay, something's going on. Let me dig in and be curious and come alongside my child and say, hey, I've noticed lately that you've been swearing more. I've noticed, I've heard you talking to yourself like that and I'm curious, oh,
What's going on? Do you want to go for a walk? Hey, when you're ready, if you want to come grab a football and go play catch or kick a soccer ball around. Hey, if you want to go for a ride with me, I'd love to listen to you and figure out, hey, what's going on inside? That's what you would do with your friend, isn't it? If you have a friend who's starting to act out, maybe they're starting to drink more. You've seen that happen. They've started to drink more or they're starting to do other things that are unhealthy and
The appropriate response isn't just, "Hey, you need to stop drinking." It's, "Hey, I've noticed you started drinking a little bit more." What that tells me is something's going on and my assumption is it's probably, you know, if it's one of your friends, it's probably something in their marriage, right? Or it could be something happened at work.
Do you want to talk about that? Because I'd love to listen and help you out with that. So you're trying to get to the root of the issue, and that's what we're after with our kids. Now, here's another insidious part of this. Moms are often put in a horrible position.
And because watch what's happening. I think the moms who email know inside what the root of the issue is. They do. But they, like the child, are understandably afraid or weary of addressing this directly with a husband slash father who can't control himself. So watch how ugly this is. It's not always, but watch how hard this is.
Here's what the mom who emails me is really saying.
I know this is my husband's issue, but he isn't open to change and he dismisses my concerns whenever I bring it up. He resists or he withdraws and he can be a little scary when he's upset. So could you at least help me change my son's outward behavior to quit the swearing and lying and picking on siblings so my husband doesn't make things worse?
Could you help me put a band-aid on this situation just so my son stops swearing? Because then at least my husband will calm down a bit. Can you hear that in what some of you do? And I'm not blaming you at all. Given your marriage and how your husband or spouse reacts, it makes total sense that you would do that.
but it's not healthy and that's not a good thing. And what a horrible position you have to be in and say, I know my son's really struggling with something, but could you help me just stop this outward behavior because my husband doesn't deal well with it and he's really hard to deal with. So if we can just make things okay on the surface, then at least I can deal with that.
And I get that. And oftentimes when I reply back, I give or when I'm working with a couple, I can talk to the guy separately about this kind of guy to guy. And sometimes I can do some things that, hey, we can change some of that outward behavior, right, pretty quickly. But that's not the real goal.
One of the things, and I've mentioned this before, a conversation to have with a resistant spouse is something like this. And only if it's true, right? Hey, honey, I know that sometimes I blame you for being too harsh when you discipline the kids, but I think sometimes I'm too sweet sometimes.
And I let them get away with things. Hey, could we listen to one program that this guy has? Can we compare notes and then work on being more balanced so we can be calm and connected? And authoritative leaders for our kids. See, sometimes they rub with men. Sometimes when I talk to men, they're like, well, she just lets the kids get away with everything.
Well, the reason the kids don't like me is because I actually say no to them and I've got boundaries. And I'm like, yeah, and healthy boundaries are really, really important. So you need to work together on that. So if you use this language with your husband, sometimes like, hey, I want to be an authoritative leader because sometimes that doesn't happen. Can we do that together? And then that way your spouse doesn't feel like he's always the bad guy. So one of the reasons we created the Calm Couples Marriage Program, it's in the
It's in one of the packages we sell is because most guys won't go to marriage therapy and they won't last because here's what it feels like because this is what it felt like for me back in the day. Felt like the therapist and my wife were teaming up on me. They had all this language that they were using that I didn't understand. And I honestly, I felt like a four-year-old. I was like,
I can, successful in the corporate world, I've started to run my own business. I do all kinds of these things. I can handle finances. I can do all these things as a man, but I have no idea how to handle these situations with my kids and relationships. And so it felt like it was just very overwhelming for me as a guy. And so what do guys do? You know what? I'm just going to go earn the living. Honey, you handle this stuff.
Even if his wife is making more money than he is, he's still like, I'm just going to go do, say, my little area. You handle all this stuff. And I don't want that. And the other nice thing is you're not asking your husband to completely change their parenting paradigm or listen to 12 programs in a calm parenting package. Just one.
Just one. And then you two can wrestle with these ideas together. That will change your family. I also like talking to men like men. Okay. Hey, look, honey, you don't allow the kids to make excuses for their behavior, but you're making excuses for yours. And it's hurting our marriage. It's hurting our kids. And I need you to step up.
That's short and sweet. And sometimes that can be very effective if you say that and then walk out of the room. I know that's very hard and some of you are going to be shaking and trembling when you do that because you don't know what the response is. And it could be one more time where you just get dismissed. And I'll deal with that on a separate podcast.
Then after this, I need you to step up is give your husband some specific tools. Oftentimes we as men feel helpless in this role. We're just not always naturally great at it. We don't know what to do, especially if we had a rigid dad who just barked orders and then retreated into his shell. That was my dad. He'd just yell. And then my dad would go out and do yard work for the entire weekend.
So just saying you need to be a better dad or husband is too generic. It's overwhelming. So guys shut down or make excuses. But giving your husband a very specific game plan and script can be helpful. Hey, honey, next time that Jacob does X, could we try responding this way? Hey, when you come home from work,
I know you're frustrated. I know you're tired. But instead of pointing out what the kids are doing wrong, for the next five days, for the next five days, because I like a limited time period, right? We're just going to do this for five days. We're just going to see how it works. Because we've been doing it the other way for like five years. It's clearly not working. So could we try something for the next five days? Could you come home and mention one positive attribute or choice they've made recently? And that's it. That's all I'm asking for one week.
And honey, I think they will really respond well to that because they look up to you. See, that's effective. That can be effective. You could also say, hey, I downloaded this men's program, dad's program to your phone. I'm listening to 11 programs so I can learn to be more structured and firm with the kids. Could you just listen to the one for dads and husbands? It has actual scripts you can use. It's short and sweet. It's from a guy with a dad like yours. So
Let's kind of close up with this. I encourage you, always step back before changing an outward behavior and ask, what is going on inside that is causing this behavior to manifest outwardly? In other podcasts and our programs, I go through giving kids tools to succeed and said like, you need to
stop with that mouth or we're going to wash your mouth out with soap because your strong will is going to be like, oh, could we use Irish spring? And they'll call your bluff, right? And they'll just like gargle with the soap. It doesn't work. What I ultimately want to, and I'll just tease this a little bit, is come along with
tools to create successes see the part of the worst part of this email that I mentioned before was Not actually him picking on his siblings. It's him muttering to himself that he's a bad kid That's not a good sign. That is a kid who has begun to internalize. I'm always right on the behavior chart Nobody likes me. I'm a failure I can't be successful and I want to bring to bear over the next five days the next week two weeks is
giving this child tools to succeed, putting him in situations in which he's actually really good at it, giving him tools with homework to do it differently, listening to music, using some movement.
I spend a lot of time on giving kids tools to succeed and building their confidence inside. For some of these kids, it's more older kids, it's a motivation and purpose issue that we go after. But let's get to the root of it. Look, there's no blame, no guilt, no judgment in any of this. I just want us to deal with our own issues as adults first.
before trying to change a child. By the way, this just hit me. Look, if you're a guy listening to this and you've struggled with this, and I haven't thought this through, so forgive me for this, but what I would tell you is,
This is a kid who needs your help and you want respect. You want this child to respect you. And it's not because you're a controlling jerk. It's because you love your child. You love your son and your daughter and you want them to respect you because here's what you know, life is hard and you've worked through a lot of that. You've become successful and you don't want your kids making the same mistakes that you made.
And so sometimes you're a little bit too harsh and too rough with them, maybe because that's how your dad did it, but they're not responding well to it. So your motivations are pure in this. You want your kids to respect you, why?
so they listen to your wisdom, so they don't hurt themselves and make the same mistakes. And that's a noble purpose. I just encourage you. I want you to step up and I want you to come along for the next week and just start doing the opposite. Here's a great one. Dads do the opposite of what you'd normally do. If you come home and you're just critical and negative all the time for a week, it can't be good.
It can't hurt. Come home and say, you know what? That was a really good choice you made. Fist bump, walk out of the room. Hey, I heard that situation in here. I like how you walked away from your sister and didn't react. Man, that shows me you're growing up. Fist bump. Now, it's just the beginning, but I really want you to step up here. And if you need some help, you reach out to us because that's what we exist for. So for all of you who are struggling with issues like this,
I send encouragement, a lot of respect. This is hard work and love to you to do this, to change your family. This can feel very lonely for moms, right? When you're caught in the middle of this dynamic. So I'm going to keep doing podcasts on this of different ways that you can change this dynamic, moms, so you're not bearing the brunt of everything. So,
We have our marching orders this week. We're going to start to work on ourselves. We're going to start to get to the root of this. I have to say this one other thing because I didn't say it before. There was one specific email that prompted this. And I sent back this response. And isn't it interesting? And there's no blame or judgment of the mom. But she still came back and said, but how do I stop the swearing? And I was like, you didn't listen. I
You right we get so we get so hyper focused, but I need to stop this outward behavior And i'm like, I don't care about the swearing literally don't care about the swearing or the line if I get the internal stuff, right? Inside the heart inside the head of a child All the other stuff will just take care of himself itself So if you need help with that go through the calm parenting package go through the um
or to get everything packaged, set up a phone consultation, or just reach out and email Casey. Tell us about your family. We're glad to help. Love you all. Bye-bye.
