How to Discipline Intense Kids Without Using Fear or Being Permissive #554

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So if you have a strong-willed child, you are going to wrestle with these questions. Are we letting this child get away with misbehavior? Are we being too soft? What if we don't address this? What message does that send to the other kids? If we took a tougher approach like our family insists we should, would our strong-willed child still be acting out this way? What are we doing wrong here? And you will likely struggle to be on the same page with your spouse. See, if you're too tough and stern, your kids will shut down or fight you harder. But if you're too sweet and cautious or lenient, then they'll probably walk all over you. They'll like you but not respect you. So how can we get our kids to listen while building a close connection? How do we handle these kids with such big emotions without letting them get away with things? 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. Look, the compliant, easy-going child, they will respond naturally to kind of anything. They like pleasing others and doing what they're told. So any form of discipline works well with them. They don't even need it much. Kind of just look at them and apologize. I'm sorry, mommy and daddy, and they'll make a different choice. But you have at least one strong-willed child, and it's going to be messy. You are going to constantly second guess yourself. You are going to wrestle with these questions, and that's healthy. It means you're finding the boundaries that work for you. You're even re-parenting yourself, breaking those generational patterns that kind of held you back. Our strong-willed kids are awesome because they force you to look yourself in the mirror, deal with your own issues, question your old assumptions. Think about this. When you ask your strong-willed child to do something, they will frequently ask why. And I promise 90% of the time, they aren't being rebellious or difficult, but you will think they are. They are usually just looking for context, the bigger picture, because they're strategic thinkers, and that's smart. But see, you never asked why as a child. You just did as you were told. So are you being too lenient with your kids? These are impulsive kids who will make poor decisions in the moment. By the way, it's what they're supposed to do when they're kids. And then they will do what? They will lie to keep from getting in trouble. But even when giving a given a consequence, they will simply stare at you, unmoved by it. And you'll wonder, do we just need to resort to that authoritarian approach? I mean, it seemed to work for our parents. We never acted out like this. Look, these are very purposeful kids who get very emotionally intense when things don't go their way, when they experience disappointment, when plans change at the last moment, when they can't carry out their vision. And part of the tough part with these kids is this. If you come down too hard on them, if you're negative or snotty or emotional or too terse in your tone, these kids will shut down or they'll just fight you even harder. They'll internalize that they're bad kids. They'll build these walls around their hearts. And they'll often act out more as if to say, see, I'm as bad as you thought I was. See, that's self-sabotage. And it's a dangerous mindset to grow up with and live with through adulthood, like many people do. Because then they'll subconsciously push parents, friends, and a future spouse or kids away as a self-defense mechanism. And they sometimes respond like this out of vengeance. Oh, yeah, when I was little, you pushed me around. Well, I'm bigger than you now. And we don't want that. But if you're too sweet and lenient, then they may just like you, but they won't always respect you. They'll connect with you, but I'd always listen to you. And a lot of parents who are empaths and very sensitive, get walked on, you kind of get walked on by these kids. And that hurts you because you're just trying to be kind. And then you wonder, why isn't this working? So I want to teach you how to be kind and yet firm, understanding, yet always moving toward problem solving. How to hear them, listen to them, but also still lead them. How to let them vent without you reacting. Because I think we all have three common goals with our kids. We want to connect with them. Because we know connection usually changes behavior. And why else would you have kids if you didn't want to connect and have a relationship? We also want to teach them. Because discipline means to teach. We want to teach them how to actually be responsible for themselves. And we want them to ultimately respect boundaries. So misbehavior does change. So let's look at the three primary approaches parents take. Now the old school authoritarian approach uses fear and intimidation. It's what I grew up under. While this approach does sometimes prove effective in changing a child's outward behavior, it does not build connection or a trusting relationship. And it doesn't teach kids anything. It simply rules by fear. So I think as a whole we as a society have rejected that. But we have swung too far in the opposite direction. See when you are too sweet with a strong-willed child, you build a connection with that child. But sometimes you get entangled emotionally. And your child becomes dependent on you. And that sweet approach doesn't often actually change behavior. And I'll just be honest with you. With strong-willed kids it often breeds hostility. Because these are bright kids. And that really sweet tone sounds condescending and weak to them. Like you're being patronizing. And these kids will trample your boundaries. Now here's another insight. Think about this. Sometimes using that really sweet approach doesn't actually teach the child a different response. Because the end goal for many parents is to be empathetic. And talk about emotions. It's kind of like, well at least I'm not ignoring my child. Because that happened to many of you. And at least I'm not yelling at them. And this is better than I ever got from my parents. And I understand that. But I think we can do even better and go an extra step. So the third approach, which is what we take is calm, connected, authoritative. Not authoritarian, authoritative approach. Where I am the leader. And see, I believe that this approach builds the connection and the relationship. It also changes behavior. And demonstrates self-respect for our boundaries. And it teaches your kids tools to handle their emotions. And handle tough situations in life. That's what we are after. Now some of you may have to really wrestle with your childhood experiences. And how you view authority figures first. Because that has a direct impact on your parenting. I've had to spend literally decades reconstructing this. Because I had two strikes against me. One, my dad was career military. He was an angry, manipulative guy. And he instilled fear. And so I grew up with that, right? Fear and intimidation. My where the highway approach. And at the time when we were young parents, we were also in a more conservative, even kind of fundamentalist type, religious environment. In which God, the ultimate authority figure, was a strict, legalistic, angry authority figure. Who despite what everybody said about love, just seemed perpetually angry and irritated when I messed up. And that will color your parenting as well. And that has taken me a long time to undo these core beliefs about what a good authority figure is supposed to be. So I encourage you to really wrestle with that. Now, most of us also have childhood wounds, wounds from different sources. Sometimes when you seek to comfort your child, you are actually trying to administer the comfort you never had as a child. See how that works? And then you get entangled emotionally with your kids. And you can't provide proper separation or boundaries. So as a reminder, if you do have our programs, I just updated the 30 Days to Calm program. And it includes a really helpful section on dealing with childhood wounds. I think you're going to find helpful. Go through that on your app. So you and I have kids with big emotions. And perhaps a spouse with big emotions and changing moods. So let's see how the different approaches handle emotional situations. And then I'll give you some really cool scripts to use for common situations in your home. I used to wake up congested and sneezing every morning until we began using our air doctor air purifier. That was three years ago. We immediately noticed reduced allergy symptoms, better sleep and cleaner air for our family. Air doctor's powerful three stage filtration captures extremely small particles. About a hundred times smaller than what typical air purifiers can remove. Air doctor captures airborne contaminants you don't want to breathe in. Dust, pollen, mold spores, pet dander, bacteria, viruses and more. It's partially why Air doctor won Newsweek's Readers Choice Award for best air purifier. Head to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code calm to get up to $300 off today. Air doctor comes with a 30 day money back guarantee plus a three year warranty and $84 value free. Get this exclusive offer now at airdoctorpro.com using promo code calm. So the old school authoritarian approach was and is to basically shut down a kid's emotions. Sure, you will change their outward behavior, but you're not teaching them anything and you're not becoming that trusted leader that they need, that trusted parent. It's a huge missed opportunity to teach kids how to deal in healthy ways with their inevitable emotions. And sometimes it's subtle and even good parents will say, oh honey, there's no need to be nervous. You shouldn't be upset. Oh, your brother never had a problem with this. And see, that is not that different than dismissing your spouse's emotions. When I was younger, I was guilty of saying this to my wife. Oh honey, there's no need to be upset. It'll be okay. Now I stopped short of the caveman response. You're just overreacting. But here is what I was honestly saying. And I think this is important. So I want to draw this out a little bit for us as adults. This is kind of what I was saying to my wife. Could you please stop expressing or having those emotions because your emotions make me really uncomfortable. I don't know what to do with your emotions. And now I feel obligated to fix you or fix your mood so you're not upset. See, that's not an uncommon feeling between spouses. But here's what maturity says. When my wife is kind of quiet and she's struggling inside, I am not responsible to fix it, to fix her, or to make it better. I make an offer to listen. Hey honey, if you want to talk about it, let me know and I'll be glad to listen. Preferably at halftime. I'm kidding. But I'm glad to listen. The agreement on her part is, honey, if you did something wrong or need to apologize or make it right, then I will tell you. See, that way I don't have to guess if this is something that I played a part in. I just let it, that way I can distinguish like, okay, she's just struggling with something. So I go about my day and I give her space to process without following her around and trying to fix it. See how we do that with our kids oftentimes? We walk around and we think, well, I need to fix that mood right away. And then we end up making it worse. And I will tell you, it is really uncomfortable. It is fascinating how often it comes back to being about me and how I feel about her moods and emotions. I selfishly want to scream, could you please just process this and get back to being in a better mood so I can enjoy my day and being a better mood? It's hard. I can tell you that with practice, you can get better at this so you can enjoy your day, be available to your spouse and kids, but not have to change their moods. It is very liberating for everyone because if you're just walking around trying to fix your kids or your spouse's moods, it will make it worse. Everybody will be upset. Now sometimes the tough approach that we took, that kind of authoritarian approach that I hear people, a lot of guys are like, well, that old school approach used to work well back in the day. Sometimes that is just a counter reaction to the overly sweet or accommodating response to emotions that sometimes allows kids to express whatever they want with no limits or boundaries as if it's okay to lash out and call your parents names just because you're upset. And this is where I do think we go a little too far with handling our kids emotions now. Sometimes parents get stuck saying, honey, do you want to identify your emotions? And we talk, talk, talk endlessly about their emotions and how they're feeling. But we often get entangled and caught up in their emotions and never really lead them to deal with the emotions. We don't lead them through it. So it's as if just identifying and talking about emotions is the end goal. Like, see, I did it. I was empathetic and listened. And don't we all feel better? And parents routinely send us videos of their interactions with their kids during emotional upheaval. Please don't do that because it's really upsetting for me because most of the time it's horrible how people do it. And much of the time there is a parent trying too hard to be understanding with a child and they go on and on and on. But I'm like, well, honey, how does that feel? And how is that feeling? And I'm watching the child. I'm like, the child just really wants the parent to shut up. And please just give me some space or lead me and show me a different way. I hope that doesn't offend you because I'm not meaning to be offensive because I understand your heart and your intention is to be loving and compassionate towards your child and to treat your kids and maybe in ways that you were never treated. So what I want you to know is that will backfire with the strong will child. See you're more compliant, less emotionally intense kids may find this talk about emotions soothing and helpful. So by all means do that. But I can tell you that your strong will child will find this kind of talk irritating and not helpful. What they're often screaming inside is, I know what my emotions are right now. It's not that hard. Duh. My frustration at not being able to do this the way I pictured doing it makes me feel helpless and like a failure. These changes in plans make me feel out of control. And that's why I want to seek and assert control. My anxiety, the unknowns over this new activity make me feel nervous and unsettled and not confident. So what do I do with these emotions? See does that make sense? It's not just like, well let's just talk about it. Let's identify. It's like, no, I needed a leader. I need someone in my home who's been through this before to come in and help lead me through this. And remember our steps in calming kids with big emotions. Our first step is not to try to get them to calm down. And remember that talking a lot when people are upset tends to make them more upset because it's really hard to process language when you are very emotional. And so our first step is to give them something they are in control of. Remember that phrase, motion changes emotion. Sometimes a movement or a physical activity actually helps them calm down. And we use that non-emotional matter of fact tone that says, I'm not moved by this. I know what you're going through. I've seen this before, done it. When your world is out of control, mine's not. I can handle anything that comes my way. We also validate with intensity. We avoid eye contact. So I will get, look, I want to give you a real life example that just happened in our home with me about two hours ago. So I already recorded this podcast earlier and for some reason it didn't save on my laptop. So I lost everything I had recorded and it was a really good take and I was really frustrated. Look, I'm an intense type A driven jerk by nature. And so my response was not, Oh, well, darn it. I guess this gives me an opportunity to do it even better next time. I'm so grateful for this chance. That was not my initial response. There was some swearing and grunting. And so if my family had just said, Oh, it's not a big deal. You're really good at this. Just record it again. Well see, that's dismissive. And my response inside would been like, Oh yeah, well go, you know what, right? You don't get it. But I also don't want them to say, Oh honey, I can see you're so upset right now. Do you want to discuss your feelings with me? No, I really effing don't. Right? Like in that moment, I don't. Now, thankfully my family and Mrs. Calm, they actually listened to our podcast. So she said, Well, that stinks. She said something else, but she said that stinks. I hate when that recording app is so unreliable. Now does she really know, but she knows it would be foolish to ask, Well, did you actually hit the record button? Right? Cause that would have been, that would have made me furious. Or she knew not to say to point out how good that app actually is. So she validated what I was feeling with intensity. Yeah, that stinks. See I love doing that with kids short and sweet. When she gave me some space to process without trying to fix the situation or my mood, because in that situation, I needed a little time to process because I put a lot of, I'm not saying this in a self, um, whatever way, but I do put a lot of time and effort into these because I want them to be respectful, helpful and I respect your time. So I want needed to process a little bit, but then a few minutes later, she casually and evenly said, Hey, um, if you get a chance sometimes today, we could use some more kindling and firewood split. And I was like, she just celebrate, calmed me. Well done. So watch how cool this is. I was really frustrated, but she didn't dismiss it or try to make me feel all better with a sweet tone. She validated with intensity and then casually gave me another mission to focus on splitting wood is incredibly helpful for dealing with frustration and disappointment. It's so sensory, the field of the acts splitting the wood, the pleasing crack, the pile of kindling. Think about this, which gives a sense of being in control and accomplishing something because I can see I had this big log and now I have all these little pieces and I'm carrying it in and it feels like I'm actually in control of something and doing something well. That is very therapeutic. And that's why I always say, please have in the back of your head or written down on the refrigerator, what are two or three different things your kids can do that are physical, that are sensory, that give them a sense of accomplishment when they're upset. And plus while I was splitting wood, I'd listen to this other podcast and learn the exercise before or after learning actually leads to improvements in short term memory and processing. So, as I split that wood, I actually had a couple more insights I added to this recording. So, when your child, when something your child is really focused on, let's say they're focused on building something, they're creating something, they pictured it in their brain, but it doesn't look right. They will lose it emotionally and dismissing them by saying, oh, it's no big deal. You can fix that. That's not helpful. But you also don't want to do that thing. And I see, especially on Instagram and a lot of parenting pages, the mom gets down at eye level and says, sweetly, honey, do you want to tell me how it makes you feel when your project didn't look the way that you want it or expected? Honestly, what are they supposed to say? Because a strong child might say, yeah, well, that syrupy little tone that you're using makes me want to hit you right now, mom. Because it is infuriating. It sounds condescending to them. So instead, I'd rather you walk into the room and say, oh, man, I'd be really angry if I put that much effort into a project and it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. Man, that's frustrating. See, that intense validation says, oh, my dad, my mom, they get it. And you're not trying to talk them out of their mood, but you're also not entering into this emotional space where they don't want to be. Because sometimes we draw them back and we're like, honey, let's talk about it. For 15 minutes, like, no, I don't want to talk about it for 15 minutes. So then I may walk away to give the child some space to process. And I may say something, hey, do you want a snack or a drink or anything from the kitchen? Because I'm going to go grab a drink. And now you're giving them space and some sense of control because they can choose what they want. Hey, could you bring me back a snack? While in the other room, I may say something like this. Hey, when you're ready, if you think that you're, I need some help outside. If you're strong enough to move some dirt, move some mulch for me in the backyard, I could really use your help. Because sensory kids really like doing physical things. Remember on that previous podcast, that one mom who brilliantly had said, oh, when I was on the phone with her, I was like, hey, do you have anything in the basement your child could move? And remember, she said, oh, honey, you know what? I was going to clean down there because we have company coming. You know, I don't know if you can do this. But if you could move the sofa to the other side of the room in the basement, that would really help me out. See, I'm in the middle of building something, doing something. I'm really frustrated and angry. Or it could be something emotional that happened at school with a friend. It doesn't matter. I'm out of control. But now my parent just gave me a mission. I'm like, oh, yeah, I can go move that. See, I'm in control of that. It's physical, like splitting wood. That was really good for working off my frustration. So now watch what has happened. I have now connected and bonded with them over their justifiable frustration. I am teaching them tools to calm down, movement, having control over something. See, instead of just talking about the emotions that are dismissing them, saying, hey, this is going to happen to you in life. You are going to experience frustration and disappointment. So moving, having control over something, having a mission, something very physical, that'll help you. And this kind of humility on our part also leads to contrition. So there's this little phrase in there, hey, when you're ready, on the next episode of the podcast, I'm going to share why that is such a powerful phrase and how to use it. And I'm going to give you detailed scripts and action steps to address these emotional situations that are pretty common. We'll go over anxiety over going to a new activity. We're going to cover when kids talk back and use a disrespectful tone to you. And a child just playing not listening to you. So in the next few days, let's practice these new tools we talked about on this episode. Really wrestle with your childhood issues, how you view authority figures. Some of those childhood wounds. Practice that even matter of fact tone. Come up with a few missions that you can give your kids to that are physical and sensory when they are upset. Let's practice this. Look, it's going to be uncomfortable for you at first and even practice this with your spouse when they're in bad mood. Man, that'll make you change. In the end, this will lead to connection, to teaching and kids who can handle their emotions. Moms and dads, you can do this. Look, so much respect for you for working so hard at this. So if we can help you in any way, let us know. Love you all.