In this episode of the Fresh Start Family Show, Wendy and CelebrateCalm.com Founder and Calm Parenting Podcast host Kirk Martin talk to us about how we can de-escalate situations when our strong-willed kids are upset.
Strong-willed kids are often so misunderstood. Kirk helps us to see these amazing kiddos with a fresh perspective.
There is so much more success to be had by approaching situations with an open mind and heart.
We can choose to reframe kids’ behaviors and help guide them with our wisdom when we get curious and see behaviors for what they are – communication – and then we’re often able to see their unique skills and talents.
Kirk & Wendy discuss 3 important elements to helping de-escalate stressful situations with strong willed kids.
Tune in to learn more about how Self-Regulation, Movement & Connection make all the difference when used as a parent to bring calm to the chaos (instead of adding to it).
It’s time for a New Year Kick-Start!
This completely FREE 5 Day Positive Parenting Mini-Course starts January 30th & includes 5 days of short, but powerful mini-video lessons delivered right to your email inbox! Plus a private group to interact with so you can feel the power of learning alongside other like-minded families from all over the world!
Episode Highlights:
- We have to be in control of our own emotions before we can help our child control their
- Consequences don’t change human behavior, relationships do.
- Strong willed kids often reject what we tell them because they want to come to it on their own
- Hungry, anxious or frustrated often contribute to our kids’ tone with us
- Switching our job from “throwing the hammer” to imparting wisdom gets us much further with our kids
- Showing empathy and staying neutral helps us not punish while still holding to a limit
- Use the phrase “I’m curious”, which communicates I want to learn, not I want to judge
- When a child is really upset and feels out of control, we can give them something to control/a job to do
- Using a phrase like “When you’re ready…” is an invitation to them vs a controlling statement
Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
Calm Parenting Podcast on all podcast platforms
Email [email protected] and mention this episode
Free Guide to Raising Strong-Willed Kids with Integrity
Join the newsletter and stay in the know!
Join the New Year Kick Start Free Challenge!
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Here is the episode transcript!
Hey families! It is time for our free New Year Kickstart program where I’ll help you Fresh Start your family in five days with a totally complementary positive parenting mini course designed to educate, inspire, and empower. So are you ready for a Fresh Start?
This completely free five day mini course will give you a solid understanding of the root causes of misbehavior so you can redirect your kids towards better behavior, and do it in a way where you use compassion, dignity, connection, empathy, and firm kind limits, so you feel proud and confident at the end of the day about the way you parented when you lay your head on your pillow at night. This is an easy and fun way to come hang out live and learn with me for free.
Once you register, I’ll immediately send you a prep kit with everything you need to know, and you’ll be all set to receive your daily, short and easy-to-finish, mini positive parenting video lessons delivered right to your email inbox daily for five days. Now, we’ll get started on Monday, January 30, but go ahead and get yourself registered now. And remember, these lessons are not overwhelming, but instead short, punchy and powerful and you don’t even have to attend live.At the end of the week after completing this free kickstart program, you’ll walk away feeling confident, joyful, creative, empowered, and ensured that 2023 is going to be the best year of your life as a parent. I’m so excited to get to know so many of you as we hang out together through this powerful week of learning. Save your seat and learn more at familyonline.com/freekickstart. OK, let’s listen to today’s new episode.
Wendy:
Hello hello listeners and welcome back. I am your host of the Fresh Start Family Show, Wendy Snyder, positive parenting educator and family life coach. And you guys, this is a good one today! We have Kirk Martin on to talk to us about how we can deescalate really tough situations with our strong-willed kids. Cuz y’all know that if you have a strong-willed kid, things can escalate really fast. They can go from like zero to a thousand in 20 seconds, not even, let’s be real, more like five where fire’s coming outta your head, fire’s coming outta their head, and all of a sudden you’re like, you know, dipping down into threats and raising your voice or yelling or intimidating or maybe moving to bribery and rewards all that external stuff that we are intentionally trying to take a break from, right?
So we’re talking to Kirk today about how can we deescalate intense situations with our strong-willed kids? And my goodness, you guys, I just had so much fun talking to Kirk. He is not only incredibly wise, but he’s incredibly funny and I just feel like that is such a great skill set for any human being. But especially if you’re an educator. And also like, I just love funny, funny guys, I love funny humans, but I happen to be married to a really funny guy, Terry, who you guys hear on many of the episodes here at Fresh Start Family. He is hilarious. And so I just really respect people who have a great sense of humor and Kirk is one of those people.
But to tell you a little bit more, Kirk is the founder of celebratecalm.com and the Calm Parenting podcast host, which has shown almost 1 million parents how to stop the yelling, defiance and power struggles with the most strong-willed children. So Kirk and I really have a common love and desire to support and serve families who are blessed with these beautiful, strong-willed children. Kirk is known for very practical strategies and scripts delivered with humor and compassion. And he loves to help families learn how to get their kids to listen the first time while also building a close trusting relationship.
I know you guys are really gonna enjoy this episode. We talk about how we can stop the defiance and the meltdowns and the yelling. And really a lot of our conversation is focused around how the quickest way to change our kids is really honestly to first change ourselves. It’s like we must deescalate the situations and give our child space before we discipline, and then you’ll hear us touch on how good discipline really should lead to a closer, more trusting relationship with your child. And so it’s just so much goodness in the con this conversation and I’m really excited for you guys to listen. So as a reminder, if you are not on our email list, make sure you head on over to the website, freshstartfamilyonline.com and grab our free learning guide.
We have a free Guide to Raising Strong-willed Kids with Integrity so you Don’t Lose Your Mind. That’s really our most popular downloaded free learning guide. And then we often have free events happening, which right now is that time of the year where we are hosting our annual free kind of new year kickoff challenge that’s happening at the end of January. And the registration for that is over on the homepage, freshstartfamilyonline.com. So when you hop on the email list, when you grab a free guide, when you register to be in one of our free events or workshops or challenges that we’re hosting, you not only get to come learn with me and understand more about what we teach here at Fresh Start Family, but you also get dropped onto our email list so we can keep in contact with you on a weekly basis.
We send out lots of motivational tips and inspirations and obviously new podcast episodes every week, but we also let you know when we’re running promotions on our educational programs and when our membership program is opening their doors for enrollment. Little things like that that I wanna make sure that you stay in the know about. And I can just consistently encourage you more than just here on the podcast. I love that you’re here for the podcast, but I also love to be able to actually be in relationship with you through your email. Okay? And on top of that, many of you already follow me over on Instagram, but if you don’t yet, come find me over there too. I’m @FreshStartWendy, drop me a little DM or say hello.
I love to engage with you guys over on that platform where I do a ton of free teaching and education and inspiration. So without further ado, you guys help me welcome Kirk to the show and enjoy this episode.
Stella:
Well, hey there, I’m Stella. Welcome to my mom and dad’s podcast, the Fresh Start Family Show. We’re so happy you’re here. We’re inspired by the ocean, Jesus, and rock and roll and believe deeply in the true power of love and kindness. Together we hope to inspire you to expand your heart, learn new tools, and strengthen your family. Enjoy the show.
Wendy:
Well, hey there families, and welcome to a new episode of the Fresh Start Family Show. I am really excited to be here today with Kirk Martin, who is celebrate.com.com founder, and also the Calm Parenting podcast host. And we’re gonna be talking about how we can deescalate situations with our strong-willed kids when they’re upset. Kirk, welcome to the show. I am beyond thrilled to have you here.
Kirk:
I am more thrilled. I’m excited. We’re both hyper. I know.
Wendy:
Oh my gosh. I have to tell you, I was, as I was like prepping for this interview and reviewing some of your latest episodes, Terry and I are going to see Seinfeld on Friday night. Okay. And we have an overnight date planned and I was like, Kirk has some like Seinfeld, you’re, you’re so funny in the way you deliver the incredible encouragement and parenting tips that you do in your podcast and your work, but you’re really funny and you have, you were like, I felt like I was like having kind of a sign you were having some Seinfeld moments of like, your humor is just Seinfeld-ish. I don’t, do you feel like that’s a compliment?
Kirk:
My, my brother would be jealous of me if anybody said I was like Seinfeld. No, it’s just you have to, you know, you’re delivering very hard-hitting truths and asking people to break generational patterns. So to go on and be like, look, you stink as a parent, and your kids are like, right, like, you’re doing everything wrong. What are you doing? So yeah, to be able to add humor and then just laugh at just our experiences, like all those things we say to our kids, like, what were you thinking? Right? As if they’re gonna be like, I was thinking that you don’t like me, I like to be in trouble and just take away all my stuff for my whole childhood. Yeah. So
Wendy:
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. The one, the one I was listening to was like, you were telling this Cheetos story and you were like, who doesn’t like Cheetos? Come on. I was like, it’s Seinfeld.
Kirk:
So you know what, I did a podcast last night and I bet you get this. So I’m doing a phone consultation and this guy’s like, you know, I was taking, I took my kids to McDonald’s, you know, we don’t usually eat there. And I was like, come on. Every parent says they don’t eat at McDonald’s and yet they sell 5 billion burgers a year. So just own it, enjoy it. They have the best fries ever. And all of your organic stuff is probably grown on soil that’s contaminated anyway, so I’m just kidding. I’m, we’re all organic too, but still we gotta live life.
Wendy:
I love it, Kirk. I just know, I just know this conversation is gonna be so good today and just bless so many families. So thank you again for being here. I have to start off with, you know, on a serious note, I am ser I am seriously so just thankful for your work and especially thankful to have like when, whenever I meet a man that is doing this work, it is like even more meaningful, the fact that you do this work with your son that you love and honor God through your work, that you really just point parents to Christ. And it’s just the, it’s just an honor to be here with you today. And I’m seriously just really thankful for the work that you are doing in the world.
And I talk about this a lot on the show and with my community, but you know, in the Christian world especially there, there, there tends to be a lot of just different teachings out there. And every time I meet someone who is teaching compassion, empathy, connection firm, kindness, strong boundaries and how to see these beautiful, strong-willed kids as blessings to the world instead of problem kids or kids that are broken and have to, you know, need to have their will broken, it just means so much to me. Just knowing that you’re out there doing this work, filling parents up on a day-to-day basis and pouring your heart into it. It, I just wanna kick off the episode letting you know just how meaningful your work is and how thankful we are to be here with you today.
Kirk:
I, I appreciate that. I do. Yeah. And I feel the same about you. It’s awesome. I mean, we’re, we’re aligned so it’s awesome. Yeah.
Wendy:
Awesome. Well let’s start by sharing with us how you got into this work. You have this incredible company now you have a a, a thriving podcast and, but tell us how you, you found this work, you know, what’s your story? What, what happened when you were, I think, you know, earlier in your parenting journey, most of us who do this work, right, we have these stories of how God kind of took our shoulders and shifted them into a different direction and said, Hey, I don’t think I want you going down that path. But I, I recently read your story and it’s really beautiful and I know there’s lots of aspects to it probably, but will you just let listeners know how you got into this work? What made you decide to become an educator and an encourager and a light spreader in this capacity to help parents on a daily basis?
Kirk:
So my dad, my dad was career military, so I had the, “my way or the highway” fear and intimidation approach down. And when my son was about eight, I realized he didn’t really like me and I didn’t like him. We weren’t connecting and I was losing him and I was a good, like I was a good dad, I did stuff with him, but I couldn’t control myself. And I used to go on these walks and I’d talk to God and I’d be like, why did you give us this kid? Because he, he melts down all the time. He doesn’t listen to simple things like every part of the day, getting your shoes on is difficult, going to bed, like everything. And so as I began, you know, sometimes you talk to God but you don’t listen a lot.
And occasionally I try to listen and I started hearing, you know, you don’t hear, but I started sensing like these three questions and one was, the first one was, what if I made your son like this on purpose? And the original name of our organization was actually celebrate A D H D because everything back in the late nineties was, oh my gosh, it’s a, it’s a death sentence if your child has adhd. And I was like, no, they’re amazing qualities. I want a strong-willed child in this world. I want a strong-willed child every day because it’s a lot more fun than being a, a resentful people pleaser as many moms know, right?
Wendy:
Yeah.
Kirk:
So yeah, so it was like, what if I made ’em on this way on purpose and what if by changing your son trying to fix and change your son, you are frustrating my purposes for your son. So I started thinking through that of like, oh, I’m getting in the way of a larger plan. And I started doing a lot more introspection of like, why do I find this child so difficult? Why, why, why am I struggling with Casey? And I was finding a lot of it was my own convenience. A lot of it was I just couldn’t control myself. And so I was trying to fix everybody else in my life. And then the third question was, what if instead of trying to change your son, you’re the one who needs to change. And I’m a guy so my first thing is denial, right?
Because none of us, because every guy, I don’t have anger issues really. Okay, you have denial issues. So, so eventually I learned through just experimentation if I would control myself, my tone of voice, my body posture, I saw my son respond in different ways and I was like, oh, this is cool. Maybe Jesus was right. Instead of trying to take the little speck out of our neighbor’s eyes, maybe I need to work on my own. And what I read into that little saying by the way, is if you look inwardly and work on yourself, you will never have an opportunity to actually see what’s in anybody else’s life.
Cuz you’re gonna be so busy with your own junk.
Wendy:
Heck yes.
Kirk:
So I don’t even, anyway, that’s my, that’s my reading of it, which is, so we start, so that began to transform my relationship with Casey and there were other episodes where I would just explode at him and then later I was thinking, why am I yelling at this eight year old kid? Right? Why are we struggling like this? And so it just set off transformation. And then the short version is we decided after a while to invite kids into our home, all these strong-willed kids, we wanted them in our house. So rather than going to a therapist’s office, we called them Lego camps. So the kids didn’t know they were being worked on. Yeah. We just got all these little kids who couldn’t play with each other together on a floor with Legos.
And it just snowballed. And then 10 years later we’d had 1500 kids come through our home. And then, you know, we started speaking and everything kind of led from there. But it was the greatest experience of our lives. We learned from the kids how to calm them down, how to do everything cuz they’re just di you know, they’re just different. Yeah. And they respond to different things. So that’s kind of enjoying.
Wendy:
Yes. Wow. That is beautiful. Back when you started to kind of have your, your heart shifted or your mind shifted and God started to show you some new things and open up, open up your mind to dif different possibilities. Was Ca-, so you said Casey was about eight then? Yeah. And had he been diagnosed with adhd obviously?
Kirk:
Or no, he diagnosed with everything.
Wendy:
Everything. Yes. Yeah.
Kirk:
Alphabet suit of labels. Yeah.
Wendy:
Yeah. And then you know, it’s like you saw as you started to change the way you probably talked to him, worked with him, did discipline that he naturally started to shift and change too, right?
Kirk:
Yeah. And it’s like you were saying before, it’s the relationship, relationships change behavior. Every parent we all want to go immediately consequences. What consequences can we give? And what I’ve learned is you’ve gotta have consequences. Like you said, firm boundaries, right? But consequences don’t change human behavior. Relationships do. Yes. And as he began to trust me and I modeled for him, basically disciple, right? Disciple teach means a discipline needs to teach. He started following my lead. So when we’d check into a hotel and my room wasn’t ready prior to that, right. “I’m a diamond member, why isn’t my room ready?”
Wendy:
Yeah.
Kirk:
And then I turn around and say, you need to calm down. And I know he is thinking like, look you’re 40, you can’t even calm down. Right? He saw me change right in front of his eyes and it was very humbling because I had to admit, I’ve been asking you to control your emotions but your dad can’t even control his.
Wendy:
Yeah.
Kirk:
And so it was very, very humbling process that we laugh about now my Casey’s 29 now, but we laugh about it now there is a period when we traveled a lot on the road and he would purposefully try to get me upset right before I went to speak to a large group. And then right before I go on stage he’d be like, Hey dad, are you gonna, are you gonna tell them how the calm guy was so calm today? And that was after I’d blown up and I was like “jerk”. And so it was, it was a fun little game we played.
Wendy:
So that’s awesome. Yeah. Every time I blow up or do something, you know, not what I teach, I’m like dang it, I gotta go tell my community this now. Cuz it’s a wonderful learning experience for my community, my as a teacher. Like the mess-ups are equally as important to be able to teach and speak to it. You know, I once had a mentor tell me, thank God you’ve had a million mess-ups and imperfect moments because otherwise you’d be an awful teacher. So just stop beating yourself up for being imperfect.
Kirk:
Yes.
Wendy:
And instead just tell your community what you did, how you made amends the next day, what you learned from it. Right? Like we’re always learning. It takes a long time to unravel those neural pathways that, you know, like you said many of us grew up with, we watched our parents do it a certain way,
Kirk:
right.
Wendy:
For so many years. And it’s just comes, you know, more natural so to speak because those habits are formed. So undoing it, it’s gotta be filled with grace and compassion and just being able to laugh at yourself. Right. Laugh in those moments.
Kirk:
Wow. And use it as an opportunity, right? Like how great is this? You blow up, you lose it and then you come back and then you’re able to apologize and say, you know what, that wasn’t your issue. That was my issue.
Wendy:
Yes.
Kirk:
And then you’re modeling for your child, taking responsibility for your own behavior, humility, all of those things. Now don’t do it like five times today, keep doing it for a year. Yeah, exactly. Then you’re just a horrible parent. I’m kidding. Yeah, that’s right. I was like you need to work a little bit harder if that, but yeah you’re going to like, I always tell people like, you’re going to blow up, like you’re going to lose it, but we just get progressively it’s progress, not perfection.
Wendy:
Absolutely. I love that. And then as far as like I know you support, I think what what I saw written for you is like you label it as strong-willed kids, maybe kids that have these type of diagnosis as ADHD, OCD, ODD, all the things, right? And would you agree Kirk, that in my experience, not all strong-willed kids necessarily are going to receive a diagnosis like that, but the, the majority of the kids who have received a diagnosis like ADD, ODD, ADHD are are usually 99% of the time very strong-willed. Is that accurate in your opinion?
Kirk:
Yeah, I think there’s some common things like very strong-willed, a lot of times sensory issues go along with that, right? Like our, our general description would be very bright kids who aren’t always academically motivated but they tend to use their intelligence to argue with you. So they’re like cops, judges, and attorneys all wrapped into one, right?
Wendy:
Yeah.
Kirk:
hahaThey’re stove touchers, they have to touch the hot stove. Consequences don’t usually work, they don’t want to do it your way. They want to figure out their own way of doing it. So I think one of the key things I learned early on about from my son and all these kids is we misdiagnose almost everything. So we will see they’re defiant and I’m like, well their behavior, outward behavior will come out, be expressed in defiant ways. But inside they’re usually very frustrated kids. See I can’t really fix a defiant person but I can help a frustrated person, a frustrated kid. And so that’s the word I use a lot for them cuz we get, I can always tell like if a Christian parent emails, it’s always rebellious.
I was like, oh that’s Christian word. They’re rebellious, right? And that means they’re not like obeying right away all the way with a happy heart, right? Yeah. Because your expectations are completely unrealistic of yourself and your kids. And so reframing it, you know a lot of defiance comes from anxiety, right? Yeah. So a lot of our kids, that’s another trait is not always wanting to do new experiences. So signing them up for that TaeKwonDo class and then the first night, huge meltdown and they’ll end up saying, I hate you, you’re stupid. TaeKwonDo is stupid. And so you can look at that child one of two ways either that’s a defiant little snot that makes my life difficult, right?
Which is not a good way to go or yeah, I’m looking at an anxious child whose feels helpless and needs my help as the adult. And so I transitioned in my brain from, see I always thought in that traditional role, my job as a dad was to be like the disciplinarian, like chief disciplinarian in the home. My job was to like roll through the home, just watching for people to mess up, including my wife and then correct everyone. And I can tell you wives love that. (haha) And so I then I began to see, no, my job is to be the giver of wisdom. I give wisdom and tools and I teach and I show. And I found in working with guys, they’re very receptive to that because men like to mentor and I try to identify with men and say, your motives are good.
You don’t want your child to make the same mistakes you you made and so it’s noble of you. You’re just repeating the pattern you got from your dad. So how, what if I could show you that you could still discipline your child but that he would als ultimately respect you and not fear you. And so I’m finding when I work with guys, they, they like the mentoring part. They just don’t really know how at times. So that’s, that’s one of my favorite things, being a guy that I’m able to do. It’s funny on phone consultations, I’ll hear the husband and wife and I’ll be like, oh dude, you shouldn’t have said that. That is not the right thing to say.
And then you can hear like the wife wants to say something, but she’s too sweet so then I can say it for her. Yeah. And so it’s kind of a neat dynamic being a guy in this situation. So I help them with that.
All right, listeners, I know this episode is really good, but I am just filled with excitement. And I cannot stop talking about how the registration is open for the free New Year Kick Start program that we are starting on January 30th, where I am going to help you fresh start your family in five days with a totally complimentary positive parenting mini course designed to educate, inspire, and empower you. So you guys, you gotta make sure that you head on over to the website, freshstartfamilyonline.com/freekickstart to save your seat to learn more. As soon as you register, I’ll make sure that you get sent your prep kit immediately.
You’ll get invited into the private group that we’re hosting. And I’m just so excited to get to know so many of you as we spend the week together, really through this powerful, you know, time of learning. I’m going to make sure that these lessons are easy to finish. They’re not gonna be overwhelming. They’re gonna teach you really beautiful concepts. More about the psychology behind positive parenting. I wanna make sure that you understand what the root causes of misbehavior are. We’re gonna talk about discipline, we’re gonna talk about power struggles, we’re gonna talk about communication. How can you get your kids to listen without threatening and nagging and feeling like you have to kind of force or make them comply?
I’m just gonna teach you a new way this week. So it is time to get registered. you guys, this is my favorite event of the year because I think that there is just this beautiful new year buzz where so many of us are ready for change. We are ready for a clean slate, we are ready for a fresh start. And so this program that I put together is just really going to bless you this week. And once again, it’s totally complimentary. You do not need to be live to be able to take part in this challenge. The reason why I call it a challenge is because so many of us will say that we don’t have time for learning. And this is a challenge for you to make time this week to do five short lessons that are usually between 10 and 15 minutes long.
And I really believe that no matter how busy you are, if you wanna see positive change in your home with your kids, in your marriage, in your parenting walk, then you can make time for learning. So that’s one of my favorite things when I develop curriculum here at Fresh Start Family to help families, is I really wanna make positive parenting education not overwhelming, have learning be able to be done in bite size pieces where you just are learning a little bit day by day, week by week, month by month. And those small changes really add up you guys. So make sure you have saved your seat that you have registered for this free event.
Like I said, I have a prep kit, I have some information that I wanna send you so you can really be prepared when we start on January 30th. So just head on over freshstartfamilyonline.com/free kickstart. I cannot wait to encourage and empower and inspire you through this free new year kickstart program.
Wendy:
Yeah, one of my students, I had a class I taught at church once and he said, yeah, I used to, the way he described it was I used to think, you know, before class after class before class that I was like a professional hammer thrower. I was, that was like my role was to throw the hammer, you know? And then he just was so thankful to be able to shift it into something similar to like what you’re saying, the giver of wisdom and man, especially men, like it’s, it’s so cool how God works. He, you know, he just, he blessed me with a student that contacted me this morning and was like, hey things, you know, things are Monday morning actually and things, things are a little tough with the boys. They’ve been long summer, they haven’t been very active in, in our membership lately.
And so we all know right, when you stop practicing right, and you get out of your rhythms, a lot of times there can be flare ups if you’re not remembering your concepts or you’re not, you’re starting to yell more and then the kids are starting to yell and have meltdowns, all the things, who knows. But it was really fascinating to hear her say her husband has, it’s been a longer transition to get him to fully embrace what we teach. Right? I’m sure you see that as so common. And then you know, the, there’s a lot behind that. But then as I said in the beginning, what’s so tough and frustrating and just why I’m extra thankful for men like you doing this work is especially the men out there, you know, 98 of the men around them are going, you know, like as the case in this particular gentleman, he’s got all these church men around him that he describes as godly men who are telling him that he’s being permissive if he’s actually like practicing what we teach or his wife is being permissive.
And that if his kids are bullies and in order to really get control of them, that you really need to like throw the hammer and show them whose boss and break this defiance and all these things. And it’s just, it’s heartbreaking, right? But it’s, it’s just, again, it’s so important and I’m just so thankful that you are someone who empowers men to feel powerful in different ways other than just throwing the hammer and being givers of wisdom. Like what a beautiful legacy to leave. Right? Right. Like we have someone very special in our lives, speaks on big stages every time we hear about his dad. His dad was an amazing police officer, did amazing work in the world. He is passed away now. But every time we hear him about the story about his dad, it’s about how he did not take crap and he whooped.
Like that’s, I swear every story I’ve ever heard, I’m like, we’re gonna empower men to have a different legacy, right? Where my dad was always a giver of wisdom. Like he, he taught me, he never gave up on me. He was always teaching, he was always giving me wisdom. And it’s in a way that is true power or true respect, not because, not based in fear. So I just love it.
Kirk:
One of the analogies I use for men is men respect other men in every sphere of life. Men respect other men who stay calm and cool under pressure, right? Your football quarterback in the fourth quarter, you don’t want Tom Brady coming in screaming and yelling at everybody because nobody’s going to follow him in a, on the battlefield. You don’t want the platoon captain saying, oh my gosh, they’re shooting at us, right? Like no, we respect other men who stay calm and cool under pressure, but there’s something that happens when we leave the office and we walk through the front door of our home and there’s legos all over the floor and there’s disorder, especially for the engineer, engineer guys out there, they can’t handle like disorder.
Yes. And so then we start yelling and it’s like, so sometimes I’ll ask men, I’ll be like, why don’t you just treat your kids like you treat people at the office, talk to them even matter of fact voice, you come along with that younger colleague who’s struggling and you put your arm around him and you walk down the hall with him and you give him some pointers and then you give him a pat on the back. But with your son, you come down on him hard and it’s always negative. And so a lot of it is just giving them some practical tools of when you come through the door of your home, here’s like sometimes I’ll tell ’em with little kids, take a knee like a quarterback cuz kids love when kids, oh
Wendy:
I love that.
Kirk:
Right? Like it’s a cool thing now I’m the quarterback of the home. And so they can maintain that feeling of like, yeah I’m the authority figure. But some, you know what Wendy, some of it is that how we view God, right? Yeah. If you view, view God as an angry, always angry authority figure who’s just miffed all the time at our behavior and just wants to punish people, well that’s gonna take you a certain way. Yeah. But if you see God as a gentle teacher who’s like, look I made, I made you. I know you’re made of dust, you’re not that awesome and I’m gonna come alongside love you a lot, but I gotta guide you. Well then I view start to view my kids that way. How you view your heavenly Father.
It just has a huge impact on people. So a lot of times at homeschool conferences especially, I’ll talk about that. Who, who is your God? What does he act like? How does he discipline you? And then that helps them kind of recalibrate and work on that relationship first. And then there’s nice outflow, you know, with the kids.
Wendy:
Yeah. And that’s where you, you have to find the courage to, I think invest in and believe in and have the courage to have mentors like you that might have a different opinion of how their God is, right? Like there’s all different types of godly people, right? Like there’s all anyone who loves God is a godly person, right? And there’s just a lot of different ideas, especially in the Christian world about what that means, right? So it’s just really good questions to ask and it’s like you, we all get to choose what type of, you know, godly person we look up to and there’s just gonna be different types of Godly people and there’s, there’s gonna be rhetoric that doesn’t feel in line for you.
And then you get to listen to Kirk and say, that makes sense, that makes sense to be able to, to take a knee and and, and look to Jesus in this way. So it’s just good. I love it. I love it. I love it. Okay, so Kirk, let’s get into our subject matter. So when it comes to strong-willed kids, and especially when they get upset, so let me, we’ll all keep my little girl at the forefront. And as I’m going through this, I always like to have my interviews be able to like directly apply to my own experience. And then of course as an educator too. So my little girl’s 15 now, almost 15 in November. And we found this work when she was three, did a full 180 with how we were seeing and working with her and communicating with her and disciplining her all the things.
And now she’s just a thriving teenager. We have a great relationship and she’s still strong-willed as heck.
Kirk:
Good.
Wendy:
It’s a heck – good, right? Yeah. Let’s celebrate that. So amazing to have a strong-willed daughter, but as far as, you know, let’s just talk about, can, can you talk about for a minute before we get going with how we can de deescalate these situation when strong-willed kid kids get upset, but maybe some of the reasoning to normalize why they get so upset, right? Like I always say, in my opinion, they seem to have a really strong justice button. Like they care so much about right and wrong and fairness and then they obviously have big voices and they often really believe in what they believe in, right? So Stella will challenge now at 15, it’s, it’s, it’s more just challenging about everything.
Like you’re like, oh my gosh, like that car is so that’s such a cool green and she’ll like, that’s not green. You’re like, okay, she, they just have this very strong, like they just really believe in their own voice, right? Like that’s what makes them great leaders. That’s what gives them courage to get up on stage is to to create change and be and outside of the box and not stand for injustice and all these things. But those are some of the things I think of of why they get so upset in that moment that they’re, they’re triggered or that you say no you can’t watch another show on TV and their toddlers or whatever. But could you speak to that a little bit in, in your opinion and what you’ve seen with families and then we’ll get into like what can we actually do once we realize that they’re so upset and we need to deescalate?
Kirk:
Okay. I’d say two things. That’s a really good insight. I’d say one is, and this is layman’s terms, I think most of these kids have very, very busy brains always thinking of ideas and it moves very fast in there. And so it feels like they don’t always have a lot of control inside or a lot of order. So there’s this high need for order and structure. And so you’ll see it in the strong sense of justice is no that was right. And it creates, it makes things a little bit more black and white. It is the reason they tend to be a little bit controlling and bossy at times. If when there were little, if your, when your daughter was little, if you had a play date, pretty sure your daughter pretty much controlled the play date, right?
Wendy:
Oh hell yeah. Yeah.
Kirk:
Yeah. So it’s like run along and play. No. Run along and listen to my daughter dictate what you need to do. So it’s why little things set them off, right? So if something big happens, it stimulates the brain and now they problem solve and it’s a challenge because they like brain stimulation but if something really little goes wrong, it totally messes with things because I always call ’em kind of their wound tightly and there’s a small margin for error. So little things really set them off. It is also why playing board games with them, we can’t play board games. Oh my gosh. Cause they’re gonna change the rules of game, cheat, or quit.
Wendy:
Not til Stella was eight. We couldn’t play till she was eight.
Kirk:
Yeah. So all parents we tend to see is like, well you’re being a poor sport. Well if you dig deeper it’s, I already probably don’t feel that great about myself and if I lose that makes me a loser. So to protect myself, I’m just gonna quit or I’m gonna cheat. And so when you can get inside and know what’s really going on, it gives you a little bit more compassion. It’s not an excuse but at least you know they’re not just being a jerk on purpose. Because that was my always my assumption. Anxiety comes from – anxiety is unknowns. And so that’s why new experiences take them longer to do. Their initial response is almost always going to be no to something reflexive.
Wendy:
Yeah.
Kirk:
Or do this why the why isn’t defiant it’s context. I want to know the big picture so that I can place it within some context. And here’s the other hard part, ownership, they want to do it themselves. So when it comes to faith, they don’t want to believe just because mommy and daddy do, they wanna wrestle with it themselves. And so they often have to reject what you want first so that they can own it themselves. And so you see that play out, right? Like they, they, that’s that stove toucher part of giving them some space. Like one of my favorite things is give them space.
Because if you come down on the, like the moment you say like you need to apologize right now young lady, you’re always going to get “no!”, right. And then if you’re like, if you don’t apologize, I’m gonna take away everything you want. And then she’ll say to her, her sister like, sorry stupid sister. Right? And then you got the forced apology but you didn’t get contrition cuz you were pushing too hard. And these are kids that you can’t push. You have to draw them, you have to lead them, you have to give them a little bit of space because once they come to it by themselves, then they own it for the rest of their lives and it’s a beautiful thing. So that’s a little bit I think what we see pretty commonly with these kids that sets them off.
Wendy:
That’s awesome. Yeah. The influence factor versus the control and overpowering or forcing, like that’s why I think so many people find people like you and I and and are like whoa we need to do the full 180 is because they’re trying to use that like outdated model, right? Of fear, force overpowering control to get their strong-willed kids to do something. And the the knee jerk reaction of these kids is just twice as strong. Like, so I have an easygoing – easier going – little boy who’s almost 12, Stella is almost 15. But it always was just way like if I were to do traditional discipline on him, he probably would’ve been okay.
Like thank God he was born-
Kirk:
He didn’t need it though.
Wendy:
Right. He didn’t need it.
Kirk:
Right. It’s like you don’t, those kids don’t need it cuz they’re just basically good and easy.
Wendy:
Yeah, yeah. They’re, yeah they’re just easier, right? They have a different purpose in the world. God is using them for different things. Like he’s using our strong-willed kids for very incredible things and he is using the more easygoing kids for very incredible things. They’re just totally different purposes. Right?
Kirk:
Well the easygoing kids have to grow up and work for the strong-willed kids who own their businesses cuz they can’t work for anybody cuz they don’t like authority figures.
Wendy:
Exactly. Yes.
Kirk:
It’s kinda true. Actually we joke about it a lot, but it’s pretty true. It’s like, yeah, you need the strong-willed child to push through, take the risk to start the business. Yeah. And then you need people to come along who will actually follow directions
Wendy:
Yes.
Kirk:
To work for that person. Right. It it all,
Wendy:
It really is true.
Kirk:
It kind of all works together. And so you, yeah. You parent the child that you have and one thing we get is like, well that’s not fair. And I was like, well what’s fair about it? They’re, they’re two different kids like to think that you’re gonna parent them the same way. It doesn’t work that way. So I, and always encourage parents of like, no parent the child that you have and they respond in different ways just like I have two employees at the office and they both respond differently to different forms of communication. So I customize how I speak to people based on where they are. So yeah, I don’t, don’t see see any problem with parenting in different ways that way.
So
Wendy:
I agree. And oftentimes the more easygoing kids, they, they just, they’re okay with following directions more, right? Like Terrin, he’s like, he’s just way more relaxed if, like yesterday, the other day we were surfing and I was like, hey, let’s paddle through the pier. We were in Florida and let’s paddle, paddle through the pier and surf the right side. And he saw the sign on the pier that was like, no surfing within so-and-so, the thing of the pier. And I was like, honey, that’s like, that’s like, that’s not, it’s not really like for surfers, it’s okay. That’s probably for like swimmers or something. And he was just like, no way. He would never go through that sign. Right. But Stella and I are like, oh my gosh, we’re, we’re outside the box. We’re just like that. But he thrive. He likes that.
Right? Like he’s, it’s comforting. It’s a, it’s com it’s god-given design, it’s, it’s beautiful. Yeah. Okay, one more thing and then we’re gonna start off with these tips that you have. Kirk is something you mentioned that is so important I think for us to remember about these kind of kids is they present with such confidence, right? Like such confidence and they’re like, hey follow my direction. And a lot of times I heard you say this in some capacity, so tell me if this is true of what you’re thinking and what you’ve seen is they often do have a lot of shame that they’re working through or getting over or just negative self talk about themselves. And, and when I look at that, it’s like usually these are the kids that are getting in trouble a lot by the time, from the time they’re two years old to when we really become fluent in this work and work with them in a way where we’re like, we’re consistently able to teach, mentor, guides, set firm boundaries, all the things with connection neutrality.
Like, you know, not blow up 50 times a day. We might still lose our cool twice, but until that point these are the kids that are getting like a lot of those messages, right? So of course like they’re gonna ha be hard on themselves because they do get in trouble a lot, right? And so it’s part of, I think it’s just connected with like shame and perfectionism, right? Like you gotta get it right because I’m always kind of getting in trouble and then I don’t know, do you have anything you wanna speak about that before we hop into the three things?
Kirk:
Yeah, I think, I think understanding it’s like this, I came out of the womb and all I’ve known my whole life is I tend to be in trouble, right? I’m the one in the home who gets sent to his room all the time. Well everybody else is still downstairs so you start to get isolated them against me. I go to school in preschool and right away in preschool you can’t follow directions, can’t sit still in circle time. And there are always issues. I’m the only one in a home that has to go to therapy, right? And it feels like the world is against them and it feels like they’re swimming upstream because they are, because they are in this world, right? And because as parents we have two goals. I want good behavior and good grades.
And these kids often internally say, well if my whole childhood is based on good behavior and good grades and I’m 0 for 2, I may as well just shut down. Like why would he even try anymore? So that shame piece of it is the other word besides frustration I use a lot. You have frustrated kids is the shame part because it just gets drilled down deep into them. And so that will produce either anger, right? Deep anger and defiance of like, oh yeah, you by teenage years you thought, you’ve always thought I was the bad kid. Now I’ll show you. That’s a very common yeah boy with a dad who’s never accepted him then has to prove, oh yeah dad, you always thought I was never a good kid.
Well guess what? Now I’m gonna show you what that looks like. And then the other response would be, I’m just gonna shut down. Like what? Why would I do schoolwork? What are you gonna do to me? Because you’ve already taken away everything I own, right? Because your kids lost their privileges, all of them when they were seven. There’s nothing to take away. Yeah. So I think that’s a really important part is to not be thrown off by the outward bluster, right? There’s all that outward stuff. And realize that you’re the adult. I I, I realized this recently, you can’t have a power struggle unless you participate in it. And we participate all, well I can’t let my child get away with that. Why? I’m a grown man.
My 15 year old has an attitude like I’m shocked by that and I’m offended. Like what? Like it’s happened since the beginning of time. I’m a grown adult. It just means if my, so my common one for defiance and that when Casey used to come at me with a, with that tone, you know, at first it was like, you’re not gonna talk to me like that. And you know what he said the first time? He’s like, just did. And I was like, I’m gonna murder you.
Wendy:
Yes.
Kirk:
And so I eventually, so, so I eventually said, you know case, every time I hear you use that tone with me. What it tells me is you’re anxious, you’re frustrated, or you’re hungry. So here’s the wisdom. Hey, you’re not just being a jerk. That’s not who you really are. You’re hungry, you’re anxious or you’re frustrated. I’m giving you wisdom to know why you’re doing that. So two options son. You may continue to talk to me like that if you want cuz he can. So I’ve gotta ruin my day. Yep. You’re just gonna lose your privileges. I I, I’m good either way, but if you want to get some chips, I’ll grab some salsa, I’ll meet you out on the deck and I’ll help you with what, whatever you’re struggling with and look and then in there and we’ll go through that.
But the motion changes emotion. I gave him a job to do and it’s like all of us, if you’re having a bad day, you like, one of the things women hate most is when you’ve had a bad day and your husband is like, oh you don’t, there’s no need to be upset. You’re just overreacting. Right? Because we get so uncomfortable with other people being unhappy in their moods. So for me to look at him and say I’m not gonna react to that. I’m seeing something else is going on with you and I’ve got the maturity and wisdom to actually help you through that. So if you want to meet me in whites and chips and salsa son, I’m all over that. And that’s that to me there was no giving in to him.
I didn’t let him get away with his. And some of it is, I, I, I hope this doesn’t offend people but it’s, I tell people cuz I’m getting older, I’m a little bit more honest. I was like, you have to grow up. Like stop taking everything personally. You’re a grown man or a grown woman. Like I’ve got this one mom. She’s like “my three and a half year old…” I was like why are you fighting with a three and a half year old? What do you like her whole job in life is to demand stuff and then when she doesn’t get it to have a big tantrum and your job is to say it’s not how I roll.
Wendy:
Yeah.
Kirk:
Right? Like nah. It’s like, but why? I was like stop, that’s her job.
Wendy:
Yeah.
Kirk:
That’s her job. A teenager’s job is to try to get away with stuff to get their independence. Can I do one more? That’s funny but
Wendy:
Yes please.
Kirk:
You get these. Seriously, my nine year old snuck his iPad into his bed. I think we need to come down hard on him. And I was like fine with a consequence, just realize like I would go and say son, of course you snuck that into bed.
Wendy:
Yes.
Kirk:
Why would you not? It has all the world’s information on it. A million movies. It’s of course you want that in bed, right? We act shocked by it.
Wendy:
And I introduced you to it. I bought you that and I introduced you to that addiction. Yes. And then I modeled the addiction for you on my iPhone. .
Kirk:
Yes.
Wendy:
So of course we would want that!
Kirk:
I enabled your addiction and I right now
Wendy:
That makes sense, yes.
Kirk:
You don’t have to let ’em get away with it. But rather than a shame of what were you thinking, how many times do we have to tell you, you know what if you’re never gonna listen in life, instead I can say of course you wanted that in bed, but here’s how we do it in our home. All screens are turned in by nine o’clock. So because of that you just chose to lose your iPad for the next three days.
Wendy:
Right. related teachers responsibility. Respectful. Reasonable.
Kirk:
Yeah. I’m not mad at you. There’s no shame. You know, next time try to sneak it in a better way so I don’t catch you. Which is what he is going to do anyway. I know. So, but some of that is like letting go. You know the other thing I’d encourage young parents with, remember when your kids were young and you were like, every decision that we make is going to determine whether we raise a sociopath or a God-fearing.
Wendy:
Yeah. It’s so serious.
Kirk:
Right? And it’s like every, like should we let her eat the ice cream? Because if we give in right now, then she’ll learn, she’ll be entitled And but like not every decision, like you don’t even remember, we don’t even remember stuff from when they were little. Like wouldn’t you go back? You would’ve been like, I don’t care. Do what you felt.
Wendy:
Right?
Kirk:
Like just relax. I want parents to relax a little bit. If you’re listening to a parenting podcast, you’re probably a conscientious parent so you’re gonna be okay. So
Wendy:
Yes, I love that about you Kirk. You bring in the humor and I know you were joking that like he’s probably gonna sneak it next time and hon honestly like the chances of him sneaking it are so much less when you use a logical consequences that that is related, what we call the four R is teaches responsibility is reasonable and respectful and with, and deliver it with a neutral message of you’re just learning the life skills. Self-regulation. You can try again in three days and, and we’ll just keep do seeing how you go like the, I’ve seen it over and over and over again how as soon as a parent shifts out of like even if it’s the same thing of like the iPad’s going, we, we say taking a break for a few days, right? Like we’re gonna take a break for a few days, right? And then in a few days we’ll try again.
Right? But even if it’s the same thing when it’s delivered in that format of hey I’m teaching the life skills, self-regulation, I’m with a neutral tone, all the things versus like, now you no more iPad for you, you’ve lost your privilege is it’s gone. Like that’s when in my opinion the kid’s gonna be like, screw you, I’m sneaking it in better tomorrow night. So it really does. It really does-
Kirk:
Hey, can I do a real quick one in case your child does start sneaking things cuz it’s really common with the stronghold kids and a lot of adopted kids. So we have a lot of kids who will get up in the middle of the night steal stuff or go down and get food. Yeah. And so I love this approach, which is not to get freaked out cuz it’s pretty normal and say Yeah okay son, not mad at you. I’m just, I’m curious, I’m curious cuz I love that phrase. I’m curious as I want to learn so I can help you versus what were you thinking? And if you continue do this, you’re in trouble. It is. So I’m curious, when you get up in the middle of the night, what do you like about that? Like is there, like, is some of it a challenge?
Wendy:
I like that.
Kirk:
Do you like the challenge? Because they’re very observant kids and so they know the pa they, they tend to be good pattern see-ers. So they know. Is it that you like the challenge of knowing, you know, when mom and I go to bed every night, you can hear us when we click off the lamp and you know we’re gonna be asleep and you’re planning it when you’re about to go reach into that cabinet and get the food, does it feel exciting? Right? Is it stimulating, is it exciting? Is there a thrill that you’re getting from it? Right? And then there’s, is there a thrill of problem solving of getting away with it? Because I’m taking it out of this whole shame thing and saying, I’m not saying it’s okay, I’m trying to understand what needs are being met because sneaking something late at night is fun, right?
Like I, right, I is it, here’s another one. Is it kind of fun to be up late at night when everybody else is asleep?
Wendy:
Need to feel powerful? Yeah.
Kirk:
Well and it’s also peaceful because a lot of strong-willed kids, teenagers love to do their schoolwork late at night. And it’s because the world slows down. The anxiety of the parents is all, they’re gone to bed now and now I can breathe and what I’m doing is learning. And so from that I may learn, okay son, so what you told me is this, you’re a problem solver. You like a thrill and, and that brain stimulation, you like the challenge of it and you really like chocolate. Okay? You may continue to do this late at night. We’re eventually gonna catch you cuz we’ll have cameras. You will change the cameras like Ocean’s 11 and get away with it for a little while. But eventually we’ll catch you and you’ll be in trouble.
So you can do that or I bet we could take all of that energy that you’re putting into doing this and that great insight you have. I bet we could start your own little business and we could start making some money. And you also have a big heart never toward me, but toward other people. That strong-willed trait, right? Don’t say that part. You just think it, right?
Wendy:
Right! Of course.
Kirk:
Right. You’ve got a big heart, you love money, you’re an entrepreneur. Why don’t we take all of that energy and put that into building a little business and then you can buy your own things. We can give money to charity and all. So rather than just a “you cut it out, stop it or else” I just learned three or four really important things about my child’s motivations. Yeah. And now I can say, you can use it that way, right? Like power struggles pushing my buttons all day long. You’re doing that because it solves boredom and you like the reaction from me.
Wendy:
Yeah. To feel powerful.
Kirk:
Do that, but it’s not gonna end well. But what if we used that same trait and we put it into doing a service project for people. So actually sometimes the misbehavior, so to speak, is a huge opportunity not just to teach
Wendy:
Yeah.
Kirk:
But to show them how to use, get their needs met in positive ways. So, sorry, that was a little long-winded, but
Wendy:
No, I love it. Or take that trait and put it into sports, right? Like, or music or whatever. Stella now, like Stella became a star drummer, which is interesting because I used to think that the, the lead singer was, was like the, the head of the band. But really after so many years of watching her drum and she’s like an incredible drummer. We are like big rock and roll family. We’ve taken our kids all over the world to see amazing concerts, but to when she, she’s actually the leader of the band. Like the, it starts like when she gets up on it, but she’ll play like a Metallica song and she’s the one that starts the band. And like everyone’s actually following the drummer, not the lead singer. And then in volleyball too.
Kirk:
Lars. Lars Is in control, isn’t he?
Wendy:
Heck yes, Kirk. Yes, exactly. You know, Stella, we, we took the kids to see Metallica in. Ireland and this strong,
Kirk:
You’re not really Christian, you’re
Wendy:
Not I know, I know. Well listen to this str I know, right? So, so jealous. People are like, yeah, we put, we put it in our intro, man, we’re into the ocean. Rock and roll in Jesus. So just in case anyone’s freaked out, like they can leave at that point. Like, yes, Jesus and rock and roll go together. But in, listen to this Kirk, so this strong-willed child, she was like, maybe she was like 10 or 11 at the time. I think she was 10. And she found out that if you make a sign, there’s a chance you Lars will throw you a drumstick. And she made this sign, she traveled, you know, we, it’s 6,000 miles, right? Yeah. Three. Yeah. Cuz we’re in California. So 6,000 miles right to Ireland. Carried this sign around everywhere went to the show. Her and dad got in basically, essentially the pit made their way to the front.
Wendy:
And it was a, it was that show show at that castle was 75,000 people and she got the drumstick.
Kirk:
Wow.
Wendy:
That’s a strong-willed child for you, right? Yeah. Like she, I love, she led the whole thing and, and she, and he, he probably gives away like 10 or 15 sticks, but she got herself close enough. Her dad, she was on her dad’s shoulders. All these Irish guys were cheering him on and she made eye contact and made it happen. And it was one of those moments that like brings me to tears to think about it because it’s strong-willed kids are amazing. They can accomplish incredible things if they want to.
Kirk:
That’s if they want to. No, that’s, I mean, aside from all the kidding cuz I took Casey to a Metallica concert cuz I grew up in a Christian thing where it was like, if you listen to Metallica, you’re gonna do drugs and you’re going to help. Right? Right. And he started listening as cuz he played hockey. And so I called my brother and I was like, let’s take him to a Metallica concert. It was awesome. Cuz the lead singer, by the way, pray for James Hetfield. I mean the guy, if you ever read some of those lyrics and know his background, you’ll ball reading some of those lyrics. There’s,
Wendy:
I know, his story
Kirk:
His struggle with addiction. And so do pray for, I mean, I pray for him frequently and I don’t even pray a lot because you know how when people are like, pray for me and I’m like, okay, but you don’t kind of, or you do. Okay, we’re
Wendy:
Busy bodies, we pray on walks and like I’ll pray
Kirk:
For like, so I don’t even offer anymore unless I’m really going to do it. But I know that sounds awful, but we go to homeschool conventions and people come up to the booth and they’re like, is your dad really a Christian? And he’ll be like, he doesn’t sound like one, but he tries to act like Jesus. So that’s how we did.
Wendy:
Oh heck yeah. You know, I was thinking, sorry to interrupt your story, but
Kirk:
No, no,
Wendy:
You’re, you remind me a lot of Bob Goff too. And, and I’m sure you’ve read Bob Goff’s books and
Kirk:
Yeah, yeah.
Wendy:
You, you carry yourself similar to Bob. And Bob is one of the most Christian men I’ve ever met in my life. And so it just goes to show you, again, families listening like the, the Godly people that you have put on a pedestal that you think are what is like, how’s all the answers and are telling you to punish your children. Like you don’t have to listen. Like we have Kirk as a Godly guy too and he’s just, we’re just different.
Kirk:
Wouldn’t out. If you called me Godly, I would reject it because I associate Godly with a 1700s minister. Yeah.
Wendy:
Seriously.
Kirk:
Rigid, harsh. And that I tend to make it like, look Casey and I have talks and I’m like, look, you, you, we live. But, and and, and we joke sometimes kind of harshly cuz we’re, we’re guys and I said, yeah, but you never ever, ever treat someone like that. Right. We never, the way we talk to people, you act like Jesus. And so he tells people now he is like, yeah, I know he doesn’t sound like a Christian, but if you follow his everyday life, he’s taught me we do what Jesus did. Yeah. And that’s what we’re kind of after.
I don’t act like him a lot of times too.
Hey, listeners, time out. I wanted to tell you just a few more things about the free challenge that’s happening on January 30th to make sure that you feel really inspired to get registered at freshstartfamilyonline.com/free kickstart. So one of the things that I love when we do these free events, we usually do ’em twice a year. And our January kickstart one is usually our biggest one. There’s always this beautiful New Year buzz and it’s a great time to be in community with others who have similar wants and desires and common goals as parents. So one of my favorite things about these free programs, when we do them, is that we build out and curate a private community for you to get to know other families for you to process your learning, for you to ask questions.
It’s also a private group where I host daily live coaching sessions. Now you could, you know, families that are in my paid programs, they pay hundreds of dollars to work with me. And this is an opportunity for you to come be and experience what it’s like to be in a private group setting with me where group coaching and questions are happening and going down and learning is being processed and successes are being shared and changes are being made, hearts are being transformed, children are starting to behave better. Like all these beautiful things are happening. And it all is just really, you know, goes down in a community setting. So here at Fresh Start Family, we are big advocates for learning in a community environment.
And so doing self-study programs are amazing. I have done so many self-study programs over the years that have really taught me a lot. And I will tell you that when you get into a group setting and you have access to mentors and coaches to be able to ask questions to get support on, you know, concepts or, or situations that you’re struggling with or that didn’t go that well when you are next to people who are also experiencing the same challenges and you know, maybe they’re asking questions that you also learn from or they’re sharing success stories that give you hope that, you know, if you keep practicing and learning this work, that you can have the same successes in a month or two or three months from now.
So community is just a big deal here at Fresh Start Family, and this private group that we’ve curated just for the families who are taking part in the free Kick Start program that we’re starting on January 30th, is, is going to be something that you really, really are, are blessed by and that you enjoy. So once again, just make sure you head on over freshstartfamilyonline.com/freekickstart to learn more and to save your seat. And I can’t wait to welcome you into that private group with open arms on January 30th. Actually, I’ll welcome you even before that, we will start welcoming families usually about a week or two before we actually get started. So you’ll get to know, you know, you’ll, you’ll get your, you’ll learn, you’ll get to know your way around inside that private group even before we get started on January 30th.
All right. Families, I’m really excited. And I. Hope you are too, to take part in the free kickstart program with us.
Wendy:
Yeah, exactly.
Kirk:
But that, you know what I’m saying? Yeah. That’s that’s the, but anyway,
Wendy:
That’s exactly Bob Goffs way. Everybody Always. Love Does, Love Does. And it’s like that’s, that is my number one thing, right? Like you walk, you, you walk the walk. So I love it. It’s so good.
Kirk:
Okay. Off Metallica. Okay. I never thought that, I never, I know another, I I, I’ve had people walk out of like our sessions. They’re like, you took your child to Metallica. And I was like, they were doing, James Hetfield was in rehab, so it was like one day at a time. I was like, they did everything short of an alter call at that concert. Right. So
Wendy:
Anyway, yeah. And I always, I always encourage people to actually go actually look at what lyrics mean because once you explore them, you’ll realize that there’s actually a lot of teaching moments in there for children. And these are, these are human people, right? These are incredible musicians, but they’re human people and, and these poetry, it’s a lot about what humanity goes through. And so a lot of the lyrics, you’re not, they’re not what you think they are, but people assume things about them. So it’s all, it’s a whole thing with us with rock and roll. But, well Kirk,
Kirk:
We can I say one more? Yeah. It’s the compassion part of you look at all those guys like Chris Cornell and all those guys from the late nineties and they’ve all killed themselves. Yeah. And how can you not have compassion and see like it was in their lyrics, right? It was in their lyrics all along. And I said this at a homeschool convention, I was like, we killed them all because we were too busy as Christians judging them because they were rock and roll and of their lyrics. We were, and we didn’t listen to the lyrics and hear the pain. And all of those guys, like Chester, the guy from Lincoln Park, he, he was abused as a kid. He never got.
Wendy:
Exactly.
Kirk:
And they all, yeah, they, they killed themselves. And I said, we’re partly responsible for killing them because we didn’t have compassion cuz we were too busy judging them. And when, so when I go to homeschool conventions,
Wendy:
So true.
Kirk:
What I listened to is some Chris Cornell stuff and some of those lyrics and cuz it, it and James Hetfield of the ones of struggling with addiction because that’s real human beings with a lot of pain. And I always say that’s, that’s where Jesus would’ve been. He would’ve been exactly going after those people filled with pain. Not doing a political rally to homeschool convention don’t mean to offend anybody, right?
Wendy:
Yeah.
Kirk:
This isn’t walk in those halls there he’s going where the people have pain and that’s where we need to be. And, and, and so we’ll segue back into our kids. There’s a lot of pain underneath our kids that pain. It’s the shame. And when you can reach into that man, it’s a beautiful, beautiful thing. Like your daughter, I wish I can invest in your daughter any I know who gets a sign and travels 6,000 miles and pushes through 75,000 people to get up front and gets this, the drumstick. Like honestly, what, what else? When she puts her mind to it, she’s gonna be able to do anything. It’s like you’re done, done as a parent now.
Wendy:
So I know, I know. That’s, that’s the beauty of this work is when you Yeah. Yeah. It’s, well, okay, so just real quick and we’re, we’re gonna end up just summarizing the points we had today because we’ve talked on all of this you guys, and I’m just gonna summarize in the end because Kirk is so fun to talk to and this was just such a beautiful organic conversation. But back to like that, you know, talking about all these artists that have these troubled childhoods, like, you know, Kurt Cobain is one of the examples, right? You can go watch his documentary really easily on any of the streaming channels. It’s heartbreaking, right? There was full blown abuse and then other times there’s just massive disconnection with parents, right? Like in so many of these artists passed, whether it might not be descri, you know, it might be classified as abuse and it was full blown shame, humiliation, suffering.
That’s what I love the work of Jim Ja, Jim and Lynn Jackson over at Connected Families in their history with working with troubled teens. Like they, 99.9% of the time these teens that had such tru like issues, they came from these autocratic homes my way or the highway. And just, it’s amazing what some, what that does to some, most, most humans. But I think back to like, you know, just, it’s just so important what you said about so many of these kids are, are hurting inside. And like this message that I got with like, I know that this family that I referenced earlier and like, you know, the dad is being influenced by these people in his church that are saying that they’re ungodly in the way they’re parenting and they’re permissive and they’re not laying the hammer.
All these things and their children are bullies and they’re gonna grow up to be maniacs and like basically it’s just all fear, right? But I, but what rushed over me as I was listening to this is knowing that these, these boys had been like traditional punishment had been used on them I think from the age of like two to seven, all the classic Dobson stuff and like just massive amounts of hurt, pain, humiliation, disconnection, fear, all the things. And now they’re at the point where they’re having panic attacks at age 11 when they might get caught for lying and they can’t even breathe and they cannot even, and I just was like, man, like it is, it is just so important that like you continue to do your work, Kirk and I continue to do my work and we just continue to help parents understand that that is not a child who has aggression issues.
Like something’s going on for these boys obviously, right? They’ve become, their self-control is outta whack. They’re not thriving like they were eight months ago, whatever it may be. But there’s probably a significant amount of trauma that these kids experienced in those five years that this family was doing things in this way that they were told by the church is the way to raise these great kids that are gonna become good human beings. And, and now they still have these children that are really struggling in life. And so I just wanna like really say that it’s a big deal when you learn as a parent to look underneath, seek to understand, try to figure out and have empathy and compassion and, and realize that it’s n it’s a lot of this outward behavior.
Wendy:
It’s just, is it the right way to say it’s just a symptom, right? Like it’s not what’s,
Kirk:
It’s the outward expression of something else going on inside, right?
Wendy:
Yes. And so there’s just a lot of different reasons and Kirk’s work will help you discover that my work, obviously our educational programs will help you guys discover that and just keep going, right? Like when we were talking about how these kids often have like this, a lot of negative self-talk and they beat themselves up easier, a lot of times it’s, it is like the messages we give them when they’re young, right? Like before I found this work and still to this day, like it was probably three years ago that I said to my daughter and I had been teaching for a while by this point and I looked her straight in the eyes and I said, can you just stop being you? Like darn it that was really jacked up. Like there is still so many times I make so many mistakes and with these like shame just like, what is wrong with you?
Why can’t you listen? You know, not so much anymore these days cuz I continue every day to get more fluent and fluent. But back in those initial years, right when she was little and before we found this work, there’s just a lot that we can take responsibility for with humility and not shame ourselves, but realize that that just takes some time sometimes to un unravel it and unlearn it and realize that there, there might be some, some residual effects of that, right? And so you just, when, if you’ve got these strong-willed kids or any of like the ADD, ODD, ADHD, all the things, just know that that’s probably going on inside of them. There’s probably a contribution we had in those early years before we found a different way to speak to them and discipline them and guide them and as you said, give wisdom.
And now part of our job is to help them unlearn what we taught them about whether they can believe in themselves or not and how they just think about themselves. Like that’s part of the la later work, right? Like once you shift it, you do the 180 and then you realize, okay, it’s important for me to, to give wisdom about all these life skills that I’m teaching and also to help them unlearn anything that they might think about themselves. You’re not broken, there’s nothing wrong with you, you’re not the black sheep of the family. You’re actually amazing for a million different reasons. So just wanted to kind of wrap all that up.
Kirk:
Awesome.
Wendy:
So good. So, okay, so I’m gonna read through our points. We covered our points today, you guys in all these different like fun stories and conversations, but the three points that Kirk had designed and brought to the table today when we talk about how to deescalate situations with a strong-willed kid when they’re upset is, number one, we must control our own emotions first before we address the child. The quickest way to change your child’s behavior is to first control your own. I feel like we really hit on that Kirk with like a lot of different examples, right?
Kirk:
Yeah, yeah.
Wendy:
Number two, motion changes, emotion, sometimes talking makes kids more upset. Use movement to calm and upset child. That’s the only thing we didn’t talk about. So I’m gonna have you cover that real quick if you happen to have a few more minutes. Okay. And then the last thing is relationships, change behavior. And that one we have covered. We have, we have talked about that a lot, but just talk, give us this last little point about the, the emotion changes, emotion talking makes kids more upset often. And how using movement to calm and upset child really helps. And then we’ll wrap up and make sure listeners know where to find you. Okay?
Kirk:
Okay. Motion changes. Emotion. Couple examples. Son’s yelling at my wife, I walk in. Why are you doing that? It escalates. I walk in and say, hey, I can tell you’re frustrated. Listen, I’m gonna go outside with a football when you’re ready, if you want to come play catch, love to play catch with you. Or hey, I can tell you’re frustrated, I’m gonna dump some legos out when you’re ready, come in, we’ll build a spaceship. When the child is really upset, they’re out of control. They don’t, they don’t feel in control of anything. So I give them something they’re in control of. See, I don’t know how to calm down, but I do know how to build my Legos. Busy mom with four kids in the kitchen melting down, child’s melting down to say, Hey Jacob, do me a favor. I could you go in the pantry and get me some spaghetti sauce. Could you get that top off for me?
Kirk:
See, I didn’t change his behavior right away. I didn’t tell him to calm down. I gave him something he was in control of for little kids. Melting down on all three in Target. If dad were to get down on the floor and start doing pushups, I guarantee the kid will stop melting down, look at his dad, like, what are you doing on the floor? And dad can say, you know, when I get frustrated I do pushups, you wanna do 10 with me? And I’m leading, I’m drawing. That was the hey case, if you wanna get chips, I’ll get salsa. I’ll meet you on a deck. I like some movement because I’d like to move outta that place of conflict and tension. And I’d like to give kids something to do. One other quick one, this was real life. A daughter really upset.
And the dad, instead of talking to her about her attitude, said, Hey, I’m gonna go out in the garden when you’re ready. Could you bring me a couple waters and help me out there? Or they both like, they’d like to draw together. And he said, you know what, I’m gonna go with my sketchpad in the basement when you’re ready because I like the when you’re ready gives the child a little bit of ownership instead of you do this right now, which you know doesn’t work. And he said, Hey, when you’re ready, if you come down, I’d like to show you something that I’m working on and maybe you could help me. So there’s an invitation to come to me rather than go to your room, it’s come be with me and I’m going to lead you. Our phrase is, I’m gonna lead you to a calm place rather than you need to calm down right now.
It’s like, no, I’m gonna lead you to calm. I’m gonna show you, and here’s a phrase I’ll end with. The message I want to send is this, when your world is out of control, mine’s not. You can trust me. Yeah. And so that’s why they’re controlling myself first, leading them to calm. And that’s, I, I believe the model that God uses. He doesn’t say, you know what, you’re really messed up. You need to go figure it out. He’s like, no, come spend some time with me and I’ll help you. And that’s the model come to me. It’s a we issue, not a you issue. It’s me together with you. And I love that model.
Wendy:
Oh man, Kirk, that is so powerful.
Kirk:
Plus it works, it it, yeah.
Wendy:
The data, the data’s in it works better, right? Like seriously go try it. Because the opposite is what parents do, right? This is the classic. Like, we all know how to do this and you don’t have to teach us, you look me in the eye and you listen, look me in the eye, right? Like, and it’s like this, we’re gonna sit here and talk and it’s like the worst thing ever for kids to sit –
Kirk:
By the way, can I tell you the looking in the eyes thing, it is something I hammer on all the time. Do not look kids in the eyes when they’re upset. It’s, there’s so much shame, right? That’s why going for a walk, sitting outside, gardening together, all those things are way better. That’s why you have a better talk with your spouse when you’re walking the dogs at night rather than, honey, we need to have a talk about our relationship. No, we don’t. Right? Yeah. So, so yeah, just I’d encourage parents to just try some of these things this week, see how it works and it gets more natural and you’ll like it, it works and it builds a relationship. So there’s no, there’s no trade off. It’s not like, well this doesn’t work as well as the other way.
It’s like, no, this actually works and works better the other way doesn’t work. It’s just what was done for a hundred years.
Wendy:
So, yep, yep. And the, and the when you’re ready is such amazing verbiage to put with it, right? Cuz we always teach, nobody can learn and no one’s a great teacher when emotions are heightened and you’re like triggered. There’s fire coming outta your head. But like when you’re ready. So I’m gonna basically go do this, that calms me down, that I can do whatever I do in self-regulation attempts to like bring myself back down to neutral and like simmer. Like let the simmer go down, the emotion simmer. You go do what you need to do and then we’ll come back and I’m here to support you and help you like when you’re ready takes strong-willed kids. And it just, I guarantee you the, the, the time that it takes for them to actually come to you, even if they’re super angry, throwing, hitting, whatever in that moment screaming, I hate my brother, I hate you.
That verbiage is gonna bring them closer to you so much faster than if you’re like, go to your room and I don’t wanna see you for a half hour until you come out and say you’re sorry. So it’s so good Kirk. I am so just seriously honored to have spent this hour with you. You are so wise and full of wisdom and just encouragement and inspiration and I’m just so
Kirk:
Thankful. Remember we said don’t,
Wendy:
I know, I don’t. I know. Ok, well
Kirk:
Then I appreciate it.
Wendy:
Seriously,
Kirk:
We’ve talked about that before. You
Wendy:
Know, I’m go love on my strong-willed daughter even more tonight after this conversation. That’s the beauty of hosting these podcasts. So yeah.
Kirk:
No, I appreciate it. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s so much, it’s just, it, it’s partly fun and it’s very rewarding and you just get to see like, okay, this just works a whole lot better and then it just holds me accountable to keep doing it. So yeah. Anyway, I appreciate you and I appreciate
Wendy:
Your time. So yeah. Well, Kirk, before we go, tell listeners where they can come find you, where’s the best place that they can come get all things Celebrate Calm, Calm Parenting, all the things.
Kirk:
You can either go to the website, celebratecalm.com, which is dumb name. I know everybody thinks we’re a yoga thing. Used to be celebrate ADHD so. Or just look for the Calm Parenting podcast and you’ll see we’ve got a couple hundred episodes, so feel free. And then the other thing, what if anybody wants, just reach out to us, you can email mine’s kirk, k i r k, @celebratecalm.com. If you have, just email us we’re, it’s a family mission and we’ll get that. Tell us you found us through Wendy, because then it makes it a little bit more personal and
Wendy:
That is cool.
Kirk:
Yeah. And it and it’s kind of cool. And
Wendy:
And does Casey work with you full-time?
Kirk:
He does, he does. Put Metallica in the subject line and you’ll get answered immediately.
Wendy:
Love it. Oh my gosh. Well, thank you Kirk, listeners.
Kirk:
Oh, you’re awesome.
Wendy:
Go find Kirk’s work, reach out to him and his son, and thanks for being here again today, Kirk.
Kirk:
All right, thanks Wendy. Okay, bye-bye.
All right guys, that’s a wrap. I hope you loved today’s episode as much as I loved recording it for you. And as you kind of walk away or turn off your device, whatever you were listening on, as you go, check your email or as you head on over and, and make sure you registered for the free challenge that starts on January 30th, the free Kick Start program, I want you to make sure that you got a confirmation email and that you received your kickstart prep kit from me. If you didn’t, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Sometimes spam folders capture those things, and we wanna make sure that you get that into your hands so you’re all prepared when the free challenge does start on January 30th.
We wanna make sure that we are, welcome you into the private community, all of those good things. So go head on over, make sure you’re registered, freshstartfamilyonline.com/freekickstart. And then second, just make sure you’re checking your email to make sure you got that, you know, welcome, you’re confirmed your seat is saved, here is your prep kit email that you will get from me right away when you register for the free kickstart program. All right, families. Well, thanks for listening today. I love every single one of you. I am so inspired by how much you care about your family and about your kids, and I’m just so grateful to each and every one of you who listens to our show and supports our work here at Fresh Start Family.
Wendy:
For links and more info about everything we talked about in today’s episode, head to freshstartfamilyonline.com/155.
Stella:
For more information, go to freshstartfamilyonline.com. Thanks for listening, families, have a great day.
