Child Won’t Accept Responsibility, Lashes Out When Corrected, Picks on Siblings? 28:32

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So what do you do when you have a child who will not accept responsibility for his or her behavior or actions, who's always blaming other people? How do you handle a child who lashes out at you when corrected?

And how do you get your kids to follow rules when rewards or consequences don't work? Those are the questions I am going to answer on the next two episodes of the Calm Parenting Podcast. So welcome, this is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us at celebratecalm.com. What you cannot apparently do right now is email us. And it's been over a week.

without us having our work email. And I keep calling the company and I have to say, yeah, our company is celebratecalm.com. It makes it a lot harder than you can't just start yelling at people. And I do find as I get older, man, I am handling this so much better than I did when I was like 45. I would have been burning stuff down. But be patient. You know what? I'm learning through this. I'm working on myself now.

Because, look, this is my life's work, and we can't communicate with people that easily. And so I'm finding, okay, I've got to work through that anxiety, all of my control issues. And I have to say, my wife has said, you are handling this so well.

And so I'm doing extra hiking as well, that helps. But I'm leaning into this and learning, okay, so something major has gone wrong, but life continues. We're still finding a way to communicate with people. By the way, I am very, very active on our Instagram page. And so I'm interacting with parents, answering questions there. So definitely go there and we're working on this. In the meantime, binge listen to past episodes of the podcast, work through our programs that you have.

if you have them and we'll just keep making progress. Okay, let's jump in. What do I do about a child who can't or won't recognize any of his wrongdoing? That was a question from a parent on Instagram. So look, this is really common in kids and adults who don't feel confident about themselves, who may have internalized that something is wrong with me or I'm the bad kid and people generally who don't have a good vision for their life.

because they find it constitutionally impossible to take responsibility for their actions, because they're constantly beating themselves up inside, or they feel inferior to others. So they build walls around themselves, blame others, make up excuses, deflect.

Look, it takes a strong and confident person to say, yeah, that's on me. I did that. That's my issue. And that's what I'm constantly asking you to do, right? Is to say, hey, that's my own anxiety that is sabotaging my efforts with this child because the more I try to control my child, the more they resist. And the more I hold on to control, the more I kind of keep them in place. But when I release them,

Man, your kids will do so many things for you. But anyway, stay on track with your kids. These are also kids who pick on their siblings more because they don't feel good about themselves and they're resentful toward the good child. So here's the tough part with our kids. And this is critical to understand as we head into another school year. We basically say to our kids,

Look, in your childhood, you are going to be measured on two things. Your job performance as a kid is measured by good grades and good behavior. Well, a lot of our strong-willed, neurodivergent kids are 0 for 2 on that count because they're bright, but they're not always academically motivated, not always great at school or in the kid world. And they're often the ones in trouble at home. And I get it for good reason.

And they often say, I'm dumb. Why do you always pick on me? You like my sister better than me. And that causes a lot of sibling resentment.

But we can reverse a lot of this if you follow the steps in this podcast. This is very foundational. Look, I'm not making excuses here. But we ask strong-willed and neurodivergent kids to live in a world not suited for them and that basically exploits all their weaknesses without giving them opportunities to use their natural gifts and passions. Think how arbitrary much of this is.

Hey, child, your job at school is to sit still all day long, listen to someone talk about things you're not interested in, then use short-term memory, by the way, which most of your kids struggle with because they tend to be strategic thinkers. So you've got to use short-term memory to memorize information for a time test and write essays about topics you're not interested in.

See, these are all tasks that will never be replicated in the adult world. They're not. They're skills that are not necessary to be successful. And look, they're more like being grouped with kids only your same age, which our kids struggle with.

But see, nobody ever tells our kids that these expectations are largely arbitrary. So they begin to internalize, I'm dumb, I'm bad, I'm a misfit. How will I ever be successful if I'm always on red on the behavior chart and I struggle with homework and I'm in timeout all the time?

so the natural response would be to shut down or lash out and lashing out is usually a sign of helplessness I feel helpless to change I don't know how to be successful this is the way I have always been and now I find I get in trouble for just being who I am all I have ever known is that I'm curious and I need and I mean literally need to move

and my body craves sensory pressure, and my brain works best with rhythm. But when I try to do what my body is telling me to do,

I get in trouble. Don't miss this, please. What do we tell ourselves as adults? And what do you hear every time you go to a yoga class, right? Listen to your body. Your body keeps the score. And your kids try to do that. But at an early age, they're in trouble. They feel dumb and like the bad kid. And I want to encourage you, implore you to prevent the following dynamic from happening.

Everyone is going to tell you all the things that are wrong with your child. It's going to be the grandparents and teachers and friends, and they're going to get you to try to focus on all their deficits. And before long, you're taking your child to an endless list of professionals to fix all their weaknesses.

and their childhood becomes consumed with fixing all of these largely perceived weaknesses. And this will have two dire effects. One, your kids begin to internalize in a subtle way, something is wrong with me, that they need to be fixed. And that will crush their confidence. And two, watch with all that energy that we put into fixing everything wrong,

We have little time to do what we should be doing, which is cultivating their natural gifts, talents, and passions. See, your success in life is not dependent on just fixing your weaknesses. Your success in life is dependent on you doing what you're naturally good at doing.

You don't choose jobs and careers in fields in which you don't have natural talents. That's like me. I don't have good spatial relations. That's like me trying to be a handyman. I would fail miserably. Your success and happiness in life

is dependent on the degree to which you use your natural gifts, talents, and passions. See, do not spend 80% of your child's energy trying to fix all their weaknesses. Instead, spend 80% of your time and energy cultivating their strengths and advantages. Look, I will go through, all through August, I'm going to do back-to-school podcasts

giving you tools to help your kids overcome some of those things and help them jumpstarting their brains, helping them with short-term memory. I can help you with that, but I don't want that to be the main focus. So I encourage everyone listening to this podcast to do the following five very foundational things. I'm going to address three today and two in the next podcast on Wednesday. So number one,

Teach your kids how their brains are wired. Teach them how they are naturally made, how life works. Prioritize what is truly important. I began having these discussions with Casey when he was in the second grade, and I would begin very early. Even if the child doesn't understand it completely,

This is important because, look, the really important part is your tone. And so much of it is about what you prioritize, what you focus on. So I had this talk with Casey. Look, Casey, you're going to naturally struggle in school. Why? Because success in school is dependent on using short-term memory to memorize information for timed tests.

and short-term memory is a natural weakness you have. Now, that's the bad news. School will just be harder for you, but it doesn't mean you're dumb, inferior, or less than. It just means that it's an artificial or arbitrary environment which exposes some of your natural weaknesses. Now, I'm going to give you tools to help jumpstart your brain, like movement, rhythm, managing your energy, not your time, and I'm gonna help you with this.

But know that after you get out of school, you'll never really have to use short-term memory to be successful again. Now, the good news, Casey, is that people with that inherent weakness tend...

tend to have good strategic and critical thinking skills. That's you. That's why you're good at building with Legos. You're good at chess and checkers and arguing with me. It's why you see patterns and you can fix things and see how things fit together. You like the big picture and that's when I ask you to do something, you ask why. Because you're looking for context to put everything together into the whole so you know the purpose.

The good news is that companies and society value and pay people more for their strategic and critical thinking skills. So while school will be harder for you, you will kill it in the real world. See, that is an honest conversation about how the world really works for this particular child. And you're being honest about

and it helps set expectations. I want you to have a lot of these discussions with your strong-willed, neurodivergent kids. Continually provide perspective.

Of course, school is hard because you're rewarded for following rules and you're a natural leader. Of course, paying attention to lots of different things throughout the day is harder for you. But in the real world, you will get to use your superpower of being able to hyper-focus and specialize. And that will lead you to get breakthroughs and companies value that. See, I...

I'm really, really, really want you to do this. We teach kids. Look, I'll teach you how to get your kids through their classes, jumpstart their brains, meet sensory needs in their seats, not be jerks to teachers, right? Let your kids, if you have our programs, part of the package is you get the ADHD university program. It doesn't matter if your kids are, uh, have the diagnosis or not. You already know if they have these symptoms and if their brains work like this.

Let them listen so that they know how their brains work best. See, this is the brain they are going to have their entire life. So teaching them, look, here's one. You don't manage your time. You manage your energy because these kids work on momentum and hyper-focusing. And when they can really grasp that and their brains need movement and rhythm, man, they can take charge of their own learning.

That's a beautiful thing. So go through the program yourself, listen, but then maybe pull out parts and say, hey, listen to this. Does this make sense to you? Is this the way your brain works? Is this what it feels like? Man, that's a great conversation. It's very, very affirming.

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Now, the second foundational strategy for 99% of us as parents is to focus this next week and then the next year on giving kids tools to create successes. We want to put your strong-willed kids in a position to be successful, to complete missions they're good at, and then put a lot more energy into affirming for good behavior than correcting for bad. Because here's a common question. When we correct our son, he directs his anger or lashes out at us

And that's because, look, your kids are just learning how to do life. And when they mess up and we constantly are there like correcting, don't do that, stop that, you messed up, here's a consequence. They begin to feel shame in a sense, right? I think these kids get very frustrated. They beat themselves up. Why am I so stupid? Why is everyone looking at me? Or sometimes it could be like, hey, did I just do something wrong? Because I didn't mean to, but now I've disappointed my parents and now they're upset. Now I've lost my favorite things.

And that causes a lot of frustration because, look, our typical go-to as parents is, and this is a question we always get, what kind of consequences can we give? We just need tough discipline. But it's not even really a discipline issue. It's a tools and ownership issue because, look, this goes way beyond consequences. Just think about this.

Let's just think about your boss at work asking you to do a new job and you're struggling with this new task and your boss says, "Hey look, if you don't do this new project well, I'm going to fire you." Well look, you get frustrated and angry and lash out because what you want your boss to say is, "Hey, I'm asking you to do a new project, so here are some new and different tools and skills in order to complete that successfully." Does that make sense?

That's why we constantly say discipline means to teach because there are two different ways to handle behavior issues. One is what we typically in society do, which is, well, we just react to the outward behavior and assign a consequence. If you do X, then I will take away Y. But you're basically punishing a child for misbehaving. Or I'd say punishing a child for not having the skills to

to do things well. Or you can say, hey, I know you struggle in this area, so let me give you a tool to create a success. It's a much better way of motivating kids and changing behavior. So here's some different things I would do, and I'll give you a really good tool for you can use at school. So what are some missions and specific jobs to do that your kids will succeed in doing? What are they good at? Hey, I could really use your help doing X.

Don't make every day one long list of monotonous to-dos that your kids stumble over. Mix in some challenges. Look, when we had 1,500 kids in our home, they did our chores at our house, but I didn't call them chores. I called them missions and said, hey, I bet you can't do this. Or I'd say, you know what? I know this is kind of an adult job. I'm not sure if you can handle this. And their eyes would light up. They're like, I can do it, right? Like your kids are like, I can't put my shoes on

but I can mow the lawn or change the oil in the car. So I would often challenge them and say, bet you can't do this backwards. Bet you can't do your math worksheet hanging upside down off the sofa. I would give them, look, one of our favorite tools in the morning to get your kids out of bed. Hey, hid your breakfast in the backyard. Bet you can't find it. Yeah, make your kids forage for their breakfast in the basement or the backyard. Stronghold kids love that stuff.

Give them an opportunity to do things in a different way. And that means you let go of your rigidity and just thinking there's one way to do everything and give them some ownership to accomplish things in a different way. We're going to cover that in the next episode. So let's take a common situation at school. Let's say a kid is having trouble sitting still all class period long. That's pretty normal. And a typical response is going to be,

to correct the child, to continually tell them, remind them, hey, stay seated. If you can't sit still, I'm going to take away recess. And it just becomes a constant battle and nothing ever really works because you're fighting nature, right?

But then the teacher does this because she's been through our training or he's been through our training. And by the way, if you do get our programs, you can share these programs with your child's teachers, right? If you get that package with the ADHD University program in it,

Just email me. When you get the programs, you're going to get an email so you can actually reach us in the meantime until our work email is back up. But you email and say, hey, could you share that program with my child's teacher or teachers? And we'll send it directly to them. And I always make the commitment that

I'll personally interact with your child's teacher and if they need a few tips, I will help out. So now the teacher says, hey Gavin, I know you need to move because you've got a lot of energy and that's going to serve you well in so many different jobs. I know it's hard to sit still all class period when your brain and body are so active, but

So I'm going to help you and you are actually going to help me as well because our kids love feeling helpful and they love doing more grown-up jobs, just not always for you, right?

So you and I are going to have a secret signal. When I do this, I want you to get up out of your chair, go grab that blue backpack filled with heavy books in the back of the room, and take that next door to Mrs. Harrison. She's going to send the red backpack back with you because I need that this afternoon. Do you think you can carry that heavy backpack back and forth for me?

See, the teacher can also specify, hey, when you do this job for me, no making noises, no interrupting other students. Are we clear? And here's why I like it. It gets us out of that never-ending destructive cycle of punishment and failure. We don't even have to mention a diagnosis. I never have to say, well, it's clear that you have ADHD. I don't. The teacher simply observes that this child has a lot of energy, but then contextualizes it.

Right? It makes it harder still in class, but man, this is going to serve you well in the future. That would be a very refreshing change for our kids from the constant negativity. Now the teacher asks for help, and our kids like helping other adults. She makes it a bit of a challenge. Hey, can you carry these heavy books? She gave the student a very specific concrete mission. She didn't say, hey, if you get bored in my class, just get up and move around. Uh-uh. It's very specific.

And she was very matter-of-fact with her admonition, "Hey, no making noises or interrupting other students." Because that even matter-of-fact tone works with our kids. The snotty tone, "You know what, every time I give you a job to do, you interrupt." That doesn't work and negativity doesn't. So the mission involved carrying heavy books which meets sensory needs and provides a sense of accomplishment. This whole scene took less than 90 seconds.

But she gave the child 90 seconds of appropriate movement within her boundaries. And at the end of this scene, two adults, two teachers have now said, Hey, nice job, Gavin. Thank you. See, we just gave that child a tool to succeed rather than the threat of a punishment to avoid failing.

I encourage you, put some time into thinking of those tools. One of my favorite tools for little kids and teenagers is the quiet, wordless redirect. So your child's doing something wrong or messing up. Instead of that exasperated sigh, right? Which, by the way, if your boss gave an exasperated sigh or your spouse every time you fell short of expectations, you would want to hurt them, right? You'd feel deflated and furious, right?

So instead of that sigh and correcting your child, with a little kid, you just get down on the floor and you quietly redirect what they're doing. Or with an older child, I would walk over to Casey and just say something really lightly, almost under my breath as a redirect.

Then I remove myself. I give that toddler or teenager space to figure it out or to make a different choice without me hovering and watching. Another of my favorite tools is finding more grown-up adult type jobs for your child to do. Look, I just say it bluntly. Many of your kids are just not good in the kid world. They're not going to do kid chores that well.

but they will change the oil. They will do things that you never imagined because it gives them a measure of agency. It's like you're raising them up, like you're calling them to be responsible instead of just obedient to arbitrary wishes. Our kids tend to be good at this, so find opportunities for your kids to do adult-type things. Look, doing something for a neighbor down the street,

builds kids with confidence. I just went down the street and I helped this older couple with X job. Stretch yourself here. Remember, we aren't raising kids. We are raising mature, confident adults.

I want to find a way to say yes to things within your boundaries. Whenever you say no to something inappropriate, say yes to something appropriate. I would encourage you to do this over and over the next few days. Instead of spending all that time and energy just correcting kids and giving consequences,

Think of all the tools you can give your kids to be successful. It's what we do in the corporate world. We just don't fire people at first. We send them to get training so they have new skills to be successful. That's teaching. And number three, affirm and give positive intensity to the good choices and your kids' good traits. Because what happens is our kids from a young age learn this.

When I do something wrong, my parents put down their phones and give me a lot of intensity. How many times have I told you not to do that? Stop doing that. And what happens is it changes the physical structure of the brain. So kids begin seeking. Look, our kids want our intensity because that means connection.

But human nature says, I'm going to get my needs met in the easiest way possible. So what they learn is, well, I just do something wrong. At least now dad is standing, staring at me, yelling at me. At least that means he cares enough to yell.

See how that works? And I want to reverse that now. So for the next couple weeks, let's catch them making good choices. Lots of fist bumps. Hey, well done, son, daughter. Hey, that shows me you're growing up. Hey, nice, good choice there. Hey, you know what? I wish I was more like you in that area. I like how you do that.

Good intensity, short and sweet. Now you are training the brain to seek intensity in positive ways rather than in negative ways, and that will change behavior. So in the episode that I'm going to release on Wednesday, I'm going to explain and give examples of the concept of ownership. It is absolutely critical if you have a strong willed or neurodivergent child. And we'll talk about sparking internal motivation with your kids. So

Here's your charge. Here's your mission this week. One, teach your kids how their brains are wired, how they are made, how they work best. Relentlessly give your kids tools to create successes and relentlessly give a lot more energy to affirming for the positives.

Thank you all for listening to the podcast, for sharing it with others. I appreciate how hard you work to change. And if we can help you, let us know. You're awesome parents.