Defiance, De-Escalation, & Discipline
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So your child is being defiant, mouthy, yelling at you or your spouse, taking things out on siblings, or just not listening. And these situations often blow up into full-scale family meltdowns with everybody upset. So how can you de-escalate emotional situations and then discipline in a way that actually works without excusing your child, without letting them get away with things?

That is what we're going to discuss on this episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast. So welcome, this is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us at CelebrateCalm.com. So there were times when our strong-willed son Casey would take out his frustration on my wife. He'd get upset and yell at her. And this is pretty common with our kids, especially after school.

So there are many different responses, but here are two common responses to this. You know what? I do so much for you. I make special meals for you. I run you around everywhere. I work hard to pay for your gymnastics or cheer or soccer camps. And I make your life so easy. And this is how you're going to treat me?

It can take many different forms, right? Like, I can't believe you would talk to me like that way after everything I do for you, right? When I was a kid, if I would have done this, I would have gotten all those different things. Speak of a lot of resentment for some of you, and this can be a husband or a wife, okay? So don't get hung up on the gender here and how I'm doing this, but...

But there can be a lifetime of feeling like you've been taken advantage of. Some of you grew up watching your mom or dad be treated that way by the other parent.

And sometimes there are these thoughts that go unsaid, but they're felt deeply. You know what? I'm the only one and the only thing holding this family together. I'm constantly walking around, taking the temperature of the home, walking on eggshells around you. And in this case, I'll make it around you and your father, trying to protect you while placating your father's emotions. Never sure when either of you is going to blow up,

I'm exhausted and I don't deserve to be treated this way. And again, that could be a mom saying that. It could be a dad saying that. And some of you feel that very deeply. And I'm going to address that in an upcoming podcast. In a sense, though, what the parent in this situation is communicating is this.

I need you, child, to behave to prevent me from feeling resentful about all that I've done for you.

See, it's a very needy and unhealthy place to be. Now, my response was to come in upset and just start barking. How many times have I told you you can't talk to your mother like this? What do I have to do to get through to you? And see, those kind of questions just always put kids on the defensive and they merely communicate you're an idiot and a failure. They just aren't helpful.

I would also begin laying into Casey for all of his other shortcomings, partly because that's what my dad modeled for me. And I know a lot of parents don't feel like they're being a parent unless they're constantly correcting or disciplining their kids. But it just doesn't work with these kids.

Right? And I come in, you know, you don't do your, turn your homework in. You don't try your hardest. You don't ever clean your bathroom. Why don't you ever listen to me? How are you ever going to be successful in life? And the truth is, I was resentful toward Casey when he was young.

because he seemingly made everything so difficult. Now, the real issue is that I was immature and he forced me to come face to face with my own demons. I finally had to deal with the fact that I couldn't control myself and it was my own control issues. It was my own anxiety projecting into the future and thinking, well, if he doesn't be successful, then I will be in a failure as a parent. I need to

buckle down on him, but that's all I ever did. And so I would begin to escalate these situations because when I came in barking at him and yelling, well, it naturally creates a defensive response. And when you have a strong will kid, they're fight or flight kids. And

And so I would deescalate. Why? Because that's pretty much the only thing I knew how to do. You know, keep it up, keep it up. You can hear that, right? Keep it up, keep it up, young man. That snotty little tone will produce anger and defiance. Keep it up, young man. You know what? One more word.

And one time when he was really frustrated Casey sneered at me word and then ran upstairs to his room and I lost it This was before I changed and this was kind of in the middle of me kind of coming coming to terms with the fact that I am a grown man in the house and I can't even control myself yet. I'm yelling at this child to control himself

Sometimes I do kind of typical guy thing sometimes I pick on guys because I'm a guy and we do these things right we come up with the Consequences that you can never keep you know what you're gonna lose all your all your video games and food for the next month We just we just blurt things out because we're not in control, but sometimes I do this one You know what you've already lost your screens for one week you want to make it two and

And the strong-willed child is going to call your bluff and just said, you know what, let's just make it four. Because they know that you and I sometimes rely on screens to keep them content and quiet. Just saying. So Casey would end up running upstairs to his room and then he would do what? Slam his door. Why? Because he knew that that was a trigger of mine. You don't have to respect me, young man, but you will respect my door. I worked hard to pay for that door.

So then I'd walk downstairs and I would feel justified because my son had just acted worse than I had. I think in a subtle way, that's why I would escalate things so that he would eventually respond in such a defiant, disrespectful way to his father that I could justify my own behavior.

We'd actually end the podcast right there and do a little bit of soul searching there and internal work to see if that's what's really happening inside of us. Again, I don't do blame and guilt. I just want honesty and then to say, okay, I'm doing that. I need to course correct and I need to change.

And so I'd walk downstairs feeling justified, although I was 35 then, I was a grown adult and he was a kid. And I was thinking, yeah, I just stood up for my wife. And you know what she was thinking? No, no, you didn't. You just ruined the entire night because now I have to spend two hours up in his bedroom, calming our son down, explaining that his father doesn't hate him. He just has some unresolved issues from childhood. Kind of kidding there, but not really.

Look, you and I have all been here before. And what I realized later is this. What I was really saying to my son in these situations was, you know, Casey, I need you to behave because if you don't do exactly what I say, I'm not sure I can behave and you do not want to see me angry. Let me repeat that again.

I need you, son or daughter, to behave because if you don't behave, I'm not sure I can behave and you do not want to see me angry. And I want that to sink in for a moment.

I needed my son to behave so I wouldn't lose it. Sometimes you need your child to behave so you don't yell or lecture or feel like a bad parent. Again, no blame or no guilt, but we have to do this differently. So how do we do it differently? Let's rewind and replay this scene. A few principles first.

You always de-escalate before you discipline. There is no good discipline that happens when everybody's upset. One way to de-escalate is this phrase, motion changes emotion.

I like using movement to calm kids down and to actually calm myself down because we're moving the child from the physical and emotional space he or she was in. That's why going toe-to-toe with an upset child, you know, look at me when I'm talking to you. Look at me. We're going to talk about that. You need to work on your attitude right now. It just never works in the moment.

No eye contact when kids are upset because it tends to reinforce the shame and it escalates. I always use even matter of fact tone with these kids. You must, must, must master the even matter of fact tone when you have a strong willed child.

I like to give kids something they're in control of because usually what causes meltdowns are what? Being out of control of things and giving kids space to process and calm down. So here are a few options. There are hundreds of them.

But I would control myself first. Then I'd walk into the kitchen, kind of passing through. Hey, Casey, I'm going outside and I'd be twirling a football in my hands because I like nonverbals. You don't want to talk a lot when kids are upset. So I'm kind of twirling the football. Hey, Casey, I'm going outside. When you're ready, if you want to come outside and play catch, I'll help you with whatever you're struggling with.

and we'll go through this but see i'm walking into the room and i'm not coming in all hot and heavy like you better stop yelling at your mother i can't believe that you would do this i'm just recognizing something's going on with my son i want to help him with that and there's an invitation hey i'm a little hungry so i was going to run up and get a smoothie grab a couple tacos if you want to meet me in the car in five again an invitation not immediately addressing the misbehavior

Let's say though in this situation you're busy cooking dinner and you can't go outside or sit and play and you've got three, four, five kids. What you can do is give your child something they feel in control of, kind of a tangible mission to accomplish. Oh, you know what? If I were you, I'd be really frustrated too. Hey, could you do me a favor? Could you grab the spaghetti sauce from the pantry? Do you think you could twist the top off for me?

See, I'm giving them something to do. I'm not saying you need to calm down right now. Here's another one. This is my, one of my favorites. This all for, oh, I just remembered. Now I

I had to make something up after that because in the moment, you don't always know what you're going to say. So I'd say, oh, I just remembered. And that would give me like two seconds to think of something. By the way, I would encourage you have some pre-planned missions. It's like a go-to fire drill. We talk about this in our programs all the time.

Have a pre-planned fire drill for when you have emotional fires in your home. Oh, I just remembered. Hey, dad didn't finish his work in the backyard. He was wondering if you could move three bags of mulch or topsoil over to the big tree. Sometimes physical work is really helpful for working off

frustration, climbing things. Many of your kids are very tactile and sensory. So climbing a tree in the backyard. I know parents who have put little kind of a climbing wall outside on the side of their house so the kids can go and climb. That physical work, really helpful. Hey, and here's one. Hey, I'm going to dump some Legos on the floor in the living room. I did this with Casey all the time when he was little. Hey, when you're ready, come in and we'll build that spaceship together.

So here's why I like this. I am not disciplining right away because that would just escalate things. I'm inviting my child to be with me, with me. See, oftentimes we, you know, go to your room, young man, young lady. And there's nothing wrong with that at all.

But eventually what I want to get to is a place where I can control myself. So I wanted to draw, I want to draw our kids to be with us when they're struggling the most. Because what we're often doing is saying, you know, I can't handle you right now. Understandably, I get that. And so when you're worst and need me most, I'm going to send you away from me.

I don't want that. See, when I invited him to be with me, see, now we're together, both of us calming down by doing an activity, playing catch, building, coloring. We're not staring at each other. We play catch. We go for a ride. We build all those things. And what I'm communicating now is this. When your world is out of control, mine's not. I can handle you when you're at your worst.

I am the one person you can count on when you need me most, when you're struggling most. I am no drama when your life is nothing but drama. Let's practice that this week. And then next, we can get to how to discipline.

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See, once we are both regulated now, I can say the following and begin to discipline. Discipline means to teach because we're now in a calm, non-defensive, non-heightened state. Hey, Case, I heard what was going on in the kitchen. Look.

I know that you know yelling at your mom, fill in the blank, hitting your sister, stealing, lying. I know you know that's wrong. See, I really like that statement. It's a lot more helpful than what were you thinking? How many times do I have to tell you? That just creates that defensive response and there's no answer for those questions. I guess I was thinking that I want to lose all my stuff and have you guys be mad at me again.

See, I know you know that was wrong. See, your kids do know what they are doing is wrong from a young age. That's why they lie, because they don't want to suffer the consequences for doing something they knew was wrong. Usually lying is not an integrity issue. It's an impulse control issue and a tools issue. And if you struggle with that,

Find this podcast that I did. It was called Stealing, Lying, and Spanking. It was from September 24th, 2023. It's really helpful. So look, I know that you know that's wrong. I also know that you know yelling at your mom

will bring dire consequences. So, I know you know that's wrong. I know you know that yelling at your mom, hitting your sister, stealing a line brings dire consequences. See, that's another, just a factual statement. There's nothing snotty about this. There's nothing lecturing. I'm just making statements of fact. You know what's wrong and it brings dire consequences. So I'm curious and I love the "I'm curious" phrase.

Since you know that that would bring dire consequences and you did it anyway, what was going on underneath the surface that would cause you to compel you to do something that hurts you? Now, that's a little wordy because I'm trying to explain this, but a couple points.

Our typical discipline approaches create a me-against-you dynamic with the child. They come from frustration. Look, I'm frustrated at your behavior and you need to answer me now.

But I'm curious says, look, I'm coming alongside you to help you. So you don't keep making choices that hurt you. See, most of these behaviors, they don't hurt us as parents. If my child yells at me, I'm not going to like wilt like a flower. I can't believe that my child yelled at me. It's not going to ruin my day. He's a kid.

So instead of taking it personally, part of what being calm is, is not being Gandhi, right? Nothing bothers me. No, it frustrates me. It irritates me. When he was yelling at my wife, I was furious at him. But I have to step out of that and say, this isn't all about me. I'm the grownup. I'm here to teach so it doesn't keep happening. And so what it helped me to do was go to this even matter of fact tone and say, look, I'm

I can see what's going on here and I'm curious and I'm coming alongside to help you right now because I want to teach you a different way so you don't keep making choices that negatively affect your life.

And my goal is to get to the root of the issue so I can help you on many different levels because I don't want you going through life just frustrated and actually being controlled by frustration and disappointment things not going your way and when I finally learned how to do this to normalize things and come alongside I could say hey case look what you're doing is hurting you right now. I'm just curious What's up? What happened? What happened at school today? I

that would cause you or compel you to come home and yell at mom, to yell at me, to take things out on your siblings, to lie, to steal. And if we had this talk while we were playing catch, riding in the car, eating tacos, building with Legos, coloring, creating something, organizing his hockey equipment, or maybe we were taping his hockey sticks,

he would usually open up and acknowledge what was going on. "Dad, I'm really frustrated with school. I'm overwhelmed. I feel like I'm just not that smart. I walk in the door and mom talks to me, asks me right away about homework." Or your kids might say, "You know what? I'm mad at Ryan because I liked Kaylee first, but he's been texting her." Or it might be something completely insignificant to you, but important to them. That happens all the time with strong willed kids.

Younger kids are most likely going to respond, I don't know. So you can prompt them a bit. Hey, are you anxious about that new class we signed up for? Are you frustrated with your schoolwork? And this is where I could normalize things. And you can do this even if you don't get to the root of it. Okay, I get that.

it's frustrating when that happens so you walk in the door after school and you take your frustration out on mom or it could be you come home and dump your frustration moms you could say hey you come home and i get it you dump all your frustration out on me now that's not going to work going forward so what can we begin doing differently after school

What kind of new routine? I like traditions. Traditions tell you what to do. What kind of new after school tradition can we have so you can get your frustration out without hurting our relationship, without hurting your other relationships, without losing all your stuff? Because now we're doing two things. One,

You were helping your child identify their triggers. And as an aside, I just added this. It's a really cool discipline tool. I've got a new discipline program that's coming out and it should be released. For those who have the Get Everything Package, it'll just automatically come to your app within the next couple of weeks. I'm taking my time on this because I'm going through literally every single discipline issue I've been asked over the last 20 years and I'm answering it in detail today.

this new updated program it is a game changer this new idea because here's what it's about instead of merely focusing on your child's outward behaviors you begin to help your kids identify their inner triggers that cause them to misbehave and

And isn't that what we're all doing as moms and dads, as grownups? We're just learning about all the triggers we have so that we can deal with those and be free from being triggered and upset all the time. And so your focus switches from just getting them to stop that behavior to

to let me give you tools and show you how to deal with your triggers that irritate, frustrate, and annoy you. See, that's powerful. That is more important than anything that they are ever going to learn in school. And you get to teach them that partially while you're working on your own triggers. It's a family thing you're doing.

Okay, number two, you are problem solving. Hey, you have this issue and I'm the trusted resource who can help you come up with creative ways to handle your anxiety, frustration, anger, disappointment. In this particular instance, we actually physically role played because it's a fantastic... Look, we don't do punishment, but if you kind of quote wanted to punish your child...

Make them role play with you because it's highly effective, but they're not going to love it at first. But we physically role played coming into the house a different way. And as a family, we came up with a new afternoon routine or tradition where

which didn't involve immediately asking about school when Casey walked through the door. Look, if your kids don't like school, don't ask how their day was right away. Hey, how was your day at that place where you're on right on the behavior chart and sit alone at the cafeteria and are bored all day, right? Like don't ask that. Instead, with younger kids, I always do a treasure hunt. Hey, I hit a snack, hit a toy.

the backyard but you can't find it now they have to use their problem solving skills they get fresh air they get some movement it's really good for older kids i ask them about something they are interested in instead of quote interrogating them about school because you can say like hey do you have any homework tonight nope got it done in study hall and your child just lied to you so instead of that you can ask them their opinion about something that happened to you that day or some political or social issue

Finally, Casey apologized to his mom. Why? Because he knew what he did was wrong. He knew apologizing was the right thing to do. But watch, instead of demanding an apology, you need to apologize to your mother right now.

By de-escalating the situation, we led them to a place of contrition. So look, you don't have to let your kids get away with things or make excuses for them. But rather than just giving them yet another consequence and sending them to their room, you teach, you help them identify their triggers, you problem solve a different way to handle all of these different emotions that happen in life. So your homework this week is,

De-escalate before you discipline. Remember, motion changes emotion. It's better to do this without giving eye contact. Practice and master that even matter-of-fact tone with strong will kids. It's critical. Give your kids something they are in control of when they feel out of control and give some space to process the emotions and calm down. And once that happens, now you can be curious and you can problem solve when you discipline.

The goal is to teach. So look, if you're stuck in this endless cycle, consequence, I'm going to give you a consequence. If you do this, this is what happens. If you're stuck in that, I want to get out of that whole mode. It doesn't work. Look, if that were going to work, it would have worked last year or 10 years ago when you started doing that with these kids.

If you want help with that, just look up the special sale we have going on now at CelebrateCalm.com because I'll show you exactly how to do it step by step and especially that new discipline program. It's going to be fantastic. So thank you for listening to the podcast. Thanks for sharing the podcast. Thank you for working so hard at this as a parent. We respect you for that. Let us know how we can help you. Love you all. Talk to you next time. Bye-bye.