“I Don’t Want Your Help!” When Kids Won’t Listen to You.
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So you try to help your strong-willed child do something they're struggling with. But they won't listen to you. Even though you have a lifetime of wisdom and it would be so much easier if they just did what you said to do. And it ends up turning into this huge fight, sometimes with big emotions.

and bad words. So I want to walk you through a couple different situations and give you scripts and action steps that actually help your kids change without the anger, resentment, and power struggles. So that is what we're going to discuss on today's episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast. So welcome. This is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us at CelebrateCalm.com. So we're at a live event, and this mom and her son walk up to talk to me during a break, and the mom says,

You know, my son doesn't ever listen and he doesn't like to be told what to do. And I saw her son begin to object naturally. So I asked for an example and the mom said, well, we golf together. And when I see my son making a mistake, I try to show him what he needs to do differently. I'm just trying to help. And I get it, moms and dads. You love your kids. You bend over backwards to help them.

And yet there's always something else going on underneath the surface. And because I'm very much like our kids, I knew this wasn't the only issue. So I asked the strong-willed boy for his opinion. And in his very analytical, direct way, he said, I don't mind you pointing out my mistake, but I want to figure out how to fix it myself.

Now, there's some insight that changes everything because if we don't understand our kids, here's how this scene typically unfolds. Mom will say, Daniel, your hips and shoulders aren't parallel. It's causing you to slice. Oh, okay. Got it, mom. No, I don't think you do because you keep... Thanks, mom. I'll work on it. Here, Daniel, let me show you how...

And now cue the five-minute parent lecture. You know what, Daniel? I pay a lot of money and give up a lot of my time to come here with you, and this is all I get? Why won't you listen to me? Do you know how long I've been playing? I just want to help you be the best golfer you can be. And then Daniel's going to be like, stop, please. You know, a little gratitude would be nice enough.

And then Daniel walks off. You know, forget it. I'm done today. Daniel, I will not let you quit. If you walk away, you are going to lose. And then your child says, whatever. And then a mom says, you will not talk to me like that, young man. You've been there before. You've seen how this works. And look, in this situation, mom's intentions, dad's intentions, they're good. Her son has said that he wants to make the golf team.

And she's just trying to help him accomplish what he said he wanted. I know almost all of you have seen this with your kids. And it's like, you're the adult and you know, okay, I've been around in life a little bit. I know in order to make the golf team or in order to make this goal or make it be in the school play or whatever it is, you have to go through some certain action steps and have a certain amount of discipline.

So why does it end up feeling so awful? Why do we end up feeling resentful after all we do for our kids? And I think there are two common culprits. Number one, anxiety. I personally believe parental anxiety is our number one enemy and it causes so many fights with our kids. See, anxiety is causing this mom to lecture, to press too much, to be responsible for her son's actions.

think about that. That's what often is happening. We're actually being responsible for our kids and she is actually feeling pressure to make sure her son is successful. Can you feel that sometimes with your kids? I want too badly for them to be successful and they told me this is what they want and I know the right way to do it so I have to just keep going and going and pushing and

And then the mom ends up becoming resentful, reacting, making threats, and getting into a power struggle. See how easy, it's really easy to fall into those traps. We begin the day with this nice outing. And by the end, we're driving home in silence, fuming, separated emotionally from our kids, bowing inside, I will never spend money and do this again with this kid.

Do you know, moms and dads, that you are not responsible for your child's happiness? You are not.

We've done that in previous episodes. You are not responsible for their responses, for their success. You're not. And if you don't know how to deal with this, you're going to sabotage these relationships. Those are emotional traps that we fall into. You have to give your kids space to be responsible for themselves and their own emotions without having to fix them. Let me do a quick side story.

So true story, very common one. A mom and her daughter, Emma, I changed the name.

But they're in a horse barn and the daughter is getting ready to ride her horse. She volunteers there to help take care of the horses, including shoveling manure in return for free riding lessons. And this is a fantastic form of therapy for many of your kids, by the way. Horses are very sensitive and our kids are often better with animals than they are with humans. So am I. When Emma is at this farm, think about it.

She has another creature to take care of. She is responsible for this horse and she gets to pet it and take care of it.

And she has something to give to, right? She has this feeling of, I have a responsibility to this horse and I take it seriously and I'm giving out because you know, you don't always see this in your kids because they're usually not that great with siblings. They're not always that great with you. They tend to be like that with little kids, with other people outside of the home.

And while Emma is at this horse farm, she also receives a lot back emotionally from these horses. Your kids are often very responsible when they care about something, when it means something to them. And when they do adult type jobs with independence, I'm going to encourage you always to

think outside the box a little bit. Think beyond even what is normal for a 7 or 9 or 12 or 15 year old. Your kids are great in the adult world. And so think about how can you actually get them to be more responsible. This is for another time. But I didn't really want to raise just a child, an obedient child, a well-behaved child. That was not the goal with the strong-willed son that we had and have.

It was to raise a responsible young man. And he is. And there's two different things going on there. But look, think about this.

When you give them some independence, these kids often step up. See, when Emma's at home, she doesn't do a darn thing. But when she's here, she works hard. She does the dirty work. Why? Because it's her own mission that she cares about.

And when she's here, no one is really micromanaging her. She has freedom. She knows what to do. The owner of the farm always greets her with a smile and tells her how much she enjoys having Emma there. And that's something that your child may not hear at home or school very often.

So Emma is like a lot of our kids. She is very particular. She is very sensory. Sometimes her socks or clothes don't feel just right. And you'll get rightly irritated. I get it. Because there are a million things to do and a million more important things than your clothes feeling just right. And we need to go. So on this particular day, Emma's just off a bit.

exhaling a little bit loudly while trying to put her boots on. And I remember when Casey would do this and it just irked me. It grated on me and I wanted to lecture. You know what? Most kids don't get the opportunities you have and the least you could do is have a good attitude.

And that was always met with, you know what, you're right, Father. Thank you for pointing that out in the midst of my irritation and frustration. It's always helpful to be reminded that I'm an ungrateful kid who irritates you.

See, that's kind of what's going on in those situations. Why did I need him to have a good attitude when I wasn't having a good attitude? See, that's my issue. That's your issue. And the sooner you own that, the sooner the power struggles stop. So you've seen these signs, right? Your particular child getting irritated, angry,

And that's what being calm, this is what it kind of does for me. It doesn't mean I get walked on, not at all. I'm an intense guy. It means I slow my world down inside. I'm not driven by the whirlwind of my internal anxiety. So I can see situations clearly. And instead of getting so triggered by our kids, you can handle it clearly.

differently because you know what's about to happen. Emma is wrestling with her boots. She's actually wrestling with her emotions as well, but mom warns her if she doesn't take good care of those expensive boots, she won't be able to ride again.

And then what's the daughter going to her? What is your child going to say then? Fine. I hate your stupid boots anyway. These kids are awesome. They know exactly what to say to push your buttons every time. And so now what do we get? Another big meltdown by both the child and the parent in public. But instead, instead, mom catches herself.

And she acts like she's getting a phone call. She steps out of the barn for a couple minutes and lets her daughter wrestle with her boots and wrestle with her frustration alone without being watched or helped. Think about it. When you're emotional or going through something, do you want someone helping you with that? It feels condescending.

And so when mom walks back into that barn, Emma has her boots on and acts as if nothing happened. You've seen that before and I know that irritates you as well. So let's go back to that scene with Daniel and his mother on the golf course, right? So how can you handle that situation differently when your child doesn't want help? And what's that other culprit that trips us up?

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I think the second culprit is that we just don't always understand these kids. We think our kids are lazy when sometimes

They're just not motivated. Sometimes they shut down and they just need tools to complete an assignment. Maybe they have a neurodivergent brain and they just need to do homework in a different way. Sometimes we think they are defiant when it's really anxiety and fear of unknowns, going to new places.

We think they're undisciplined when it's really just a lack of purpose. See, the mom's assumption is that her son doesn't like to be told what to do. And that carries a very negative connotation because you start to talk, well, my son never listens to me. He doesn't like to be told what to do.

Well, here's my response. Be thankful you have a child who wants to problem solve, who isn't just a follower, who can think independently. This is a kid who wants to figure it out on his own, wants some ownership, to be responsible for his own golf swing.

isn't that what we really want for them for the rest of their lives? Absolutely. We just don't like how they go about it. And we get triggered because we have control issues and our own anxiety. But when we control our anxiety and understand our kids' motives, the situation sounds like this. Hey, Daniel, your hips and shoulders aren't parallel. It's causing you to slice. Okay, got it, mom.

And then mom says, "I'm going to go practice my short game while you work on that. Call me if you need me." Mom walks away and controls herself, enjoying some downtime working on her putting and chip shots, or she goes to the clubhouse and drinks. I'm kidding.

But you'll feel like it. So a little while later, Daniel calls her over. Now notice he is the one saying, Mom, come over here. When he's ready, he's initiating. Hey, Mom, come here. I want to show you something.

And then Daniel hits a really good shot with proper form. And mom says, wow, very nice. And then Daniel explains in great detail, of course, how he fixed the problem. It isn't the way his mom would have done it. And your kids are almost always going to do things differently than you would have done it.

But that's a good thing and it works. And that is a huge insight for you to realize. I'm going to read that again and go through that again.

Daniel, your child is going to explain how they fixed the problem. It just won't be the way you would have done it, but it works. So your way is not the only right way. It's sometimes the easier way, but the strong-willed kids don't care about doing things the easy way, the stove touchers. So then mom can respond how? You know what? I'm really proud of you for being persistent.

and coming up with a solution by yourself. See, isn't that an awesome thing to say about your child instead of, my child doesn't listen. He never wants to do things the way we want him to. Instead you say, you know what I like about my child? My child's persistent. He or she will touch that hot stove and they come up with solutions. Not always the easy way, but man, I like that problem solving and how they think.

And then mom can say, hey, you want to play nine holes? And Daniel, of course, says, well, yeah, if you're ready to lose, because that's kind of fun and how they are. Look, this situation didn't change because the child changed. It changed because the parent changed and understood what was really going on. And that's really good news for you because you can't always control your kids or your spouse or anybody else, but you can learn to control yourself and your success as a parent. Your enjoyment as a human being works.

will largely rest on your answer to these questions. Do you and do you and your spouse understand your kids inside and out? Or do these kids leave you feeling confused and frustrated because I want you to become a student of your kids' brains and how they work

And you'll eventually have to accept your kids and their differences on a very deep level and learn to enjoy them again. Let me share this idea. This was prompted by a really great couple from the Netherlands because I've done this little parenting summit on Zoom with some Dutch families. It's really, really cool. And this idea is kind of bold, but I love it.

And they said, we have two strong old kids and we've been doing the exact opposite of what we should have been doing all these years. By the way, moms and dads, when you email and you tell me that, there's no blame or no guilt for that. Don't beat yourselves up endlessly. That endless guilt and all those things, it's just not productive. It's fine to say, hey, we've done it the wrong way. Good. It's called honesty, acknowledgement. And now we just start changing and doing it differently. See, that's a lot better than just beating yourself up all the time.

So they said, "You know, we've been doing it wrong because that's how we were raised." So we told our boys, "Hey, we want you to listen to these programs." And they actually gave them access to the Strong Willed Child Program, ADHD University, and the Casey Strait Talk for Kids. And he said, "Listen to these and then you come tell us what we have been doing wrong." And they said our boys love that because they are like little attorneys.

And see, you know, I like that idea, actually. Now, it could be taken the wrong way, but it's fine. If your kids come and they tell you and be like, yeah, you guys lecture too much, you respond to that. We feel like you don't even understand us. All those things. Like, how can that be a bad thing? You're being vulnerable. And the mom and dad said, we told our kids, come tell us three things we can begin doing differently in the home and we'll start doing it.

And what was interesting is this mom and dad said, our kids didn't point out the obvious things we were doing wrong, like yelling and lecturing or that we're too strict. They didn't complain about that. Not the normal kid complains.

What hurt our boys most is that it has felt like we didn't believe in them or believe that they were capable of being more responsible. And oddly enough, what they asked for was not stuff.

but more freedom to be responsible for themselves and space to make mistakes. See, I think that is really eye-opening, right? For that's what these kids wanted. It wasn't like, give me more screens, give me more freedom. It was like, I want freedom to be more responsible and freedom to make some mistakes without you guys intervening.

getting on us and then this nice couple said um tell Casey they loved his code word idea but they want to use a Dutch slang word I can't repeat that's up to you if you let your kids do that

So try that with your kids. Be vulnerable with them and say, hey, here are some things. We haven't always been doing things right, but let them listen to the podcast or if you get the programs, let them listen. There's no secrets in there. It's just telling them how their brains work and see what they say.

Can you control your own anxiety? Or does it call you to lecture, to project out into the future, to have power struggles and put pressure on your kids? So instead begin saying, you know what, I believe you're capable of handling this yourself. And you can say, hey, come get me if you need some help.

And then they probably won't all the time, but at least if they do, they're asking you instead of you pressuring them. And so you're available to help, but you give them some space. And then you know this question. I ask it all the time. Do you have control issues? Well, good. We all have control issues. Just identify your triggers and work on them one by one. Just start slowly working on that and saying, I'm letting go of that need to control that situation. I'm going to walk into a room and instead of telling everybody what to do, I'm just going to sit there. I'm going to observe everything.

and I'm going to problem solve. And so you can begin to recognize and respect their desire and need for independence to figure out things on their own, because these are great qualities that have in the real world. So embrace that.

Okay, you've got your homework this week. Control your anxiety. Step back. Give your kids space to step up. Affirm them when they do. And if you're bold like that Dutch couple, ask your kids what you can begin doing differently in your home. That's pretty cool. Okay, I hope you have an opportunity to work on this today when your kids don't want to listen to you. It's probably going to happen in a few minutes. All right.

Moms and dads, love you all. Respect you for working so hard at this. Thanks for listening to our podcast. Thanks for sharing it. I will see many of you on Instagram and even on TikTok now. And we appreciate all the engagement. Okay. Talk to you later. Bye-bye.