Get Kids Moving More Quickly: 10 Practical Ideas To Try This Week #513

0:00Man, this generation is so busy. You're working, running your kids everywhere, completing a thousand and one tasks that you don't always have the energy for extra self-care activities. So why not collapse into bed as soon as you can a few nights a week wrapped in cozy earth luxurious softness? Seriously, you'll be a more patient mom and dad when you feel rested and refreshed. Cozy Earth's bamboo sheets naturally wick away heat and moisture from your body. And that helps you sleep several degrees cooler. I just woke up actually in our Cozy Earth sheets. It's been a game changer for us. We've spent this hot summer cool and refreshed in our Cozy Earth bamboo shorts, shirts, and PJs.

0:41Once you try Cozy Earth bamboo, you won't be happy wearing anything else. And you won't have to because it's the highest quality and guaranteed. So head to CozyEarth.com. Use my code CALM for an exclusive 20 % off. That's CozyEarth.com, code CALM for an exclusive 20 % off. And please tell CozyEarth the CALM guy sent you. We were watching this comedy special, and the comedian Jim Gaffigan mentioned the death stare he gets from his wife when he asked, what time is that school event tomorrow? So I texted Jim, hey, you need to get Skylight Calendar for your family. Okay, I don't know him, but I did yell at the screen.

1:19Skylight Calendar syncs seamlessly with all your calendars, so you can relax knowing all the details of your family schedule are visually displayed in one place, with different colors for each family member. That means less stress, no more worrying about forgetting something important. Skylight Calendar is a game-changer with the craziness of another school year upon us, and you can try it for four months absolutely risk-free. Families are better when they're working together. Right now, Skylight is offering our listeners$30 off their 15-inch calendars by going to myskylight.com slash parenting.

1:56Go to myskylight.com slash parenting for$30 off your 15-inch calendar. That's M-Y-S-K-Y-L-I-G-H-T dot com slash parenting. So how many of you have trouble getting your kids moving out the door? How many of your kids just move slowly? They're like a tortoise by nature. Some of your kids just resist. The more you push, the more they resist. Some of your kids, it might be an anxiety issue. And then you throw in kids who have ADHD or who are neurodivergent. And man, this can be really tough. Look, we know what doesn't work. It's probably what you're doing now. And so I want to give you a range of options, a lot of them, so you can try for different age groups at different times.

2:40Experiment with these. So that is what we're going to discuss on today's episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast. So welcome, this is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us and our back-to-school sale at CelebrateCalm.com. If we can help you in any way, reach out to Casey, C-A-S-E-Y, at CelebrateCalm.com. So on Sunday's episode, we talked about the fact that kids are not supposed to be immediately obedient. But we do need them to do things and get moving. So I've broken this down into five groupings, and I'll give a lot of examples in each one. The five groupings are this. One is controlling yourself so that you can lead and draw your kids to you.

3:17Number two, I always want to give kids tools to succeed rather than just threatening them. Number three, sometimes though, we need to do more tough disciplines. So I'll go through that. Number four is ownership. And number five is connection. So number one, control yourself. You know this. If you come into your child's bedroom in the morning, come on, got to get up, got to go, school, school, school, let's move, let's move. your kids will dive back under the sheets and I've said this a million times they're not rejecting you they're not rejecting your authority they're rejecting your anxiety because when we're in an anxious mode that what your kids know is I will never move quickly enough for you you're going to get frustrated with me and so they resist it's an immature way for them to say hey I need you to chill a little bit like lead me so remember even matter of fact tone I'll give you an example getting kids at bedtime and your kids are kind of like little kids are all wound up.

4:17I guarantee you, especially if it's you and your spouse, if you would lie down on the floor and like start reading something or looking at something and you're laughing together and not paying attention to them, I guarantee they will come and they will lie down next to you. When we had all those kids in our camps, we would go to the pool. And so I watched how this worked. If I came in a room, guys, you know what? Pick up all your Legos. Come on. We got to go. you got to put a sunscreen, swim clothes, grab your towel, move. And they would go more slowly. So one day I walked into the living room.

4:50I put a swim towel around my neck because I like nonverbals with these kids. And I sat down by the front door. I didn't say a word. Guess what? One by one, each of those 15 kids looked over and they're like, huh, the leader here is sitting by the door. We're going to the pool. Oh, I want to go to the pool. And they went and got ready and they came and sat down next to me. Why? Because kids are drawn to anybody who's sitting because that means I have time for you and I'm not going to yell at you. So start thinking how can you lead your kids and draw them to you rather than trying to push. Okay number two, tools to succeed always work way better than consequences and we know that our kids need their brain stimulated and they tend to do better with challenges and missions.

5:41So let's make it more difficult for little kids. Hey, bet you can't get dressed in your closet. Bet you can't get dressed underneath your bed. A lot of your sensory kids will love that. You know, my favorite one is, hey, guess what? I hid your breakfast in the backyard. Bet you can't find it. Get them foraging for their own food. And I do love this. And you may laugh at it, but think what happens now. Instead of, come on, you got to get up. Get up for school. Go to that place where you're on read on the behavior chart. Maybe you don't have a lot of friends and you're bored all the time. Instead, it's like, no, you've got a mission.

6:15I'm getting the brain focused on a very specific concrete task. I'm getting them out in fresh air. And they accomplish something right away, which is I found my food. They get to eat it outside with the chipmunks. They're perfectly happy. And it's peaceful inside. So you and your easier kids can enjoy the peace and quiet. Let them hide something from you. Hey, if you get up, you get ready on time, you can hide something that I have to find. Kids love stumping their parents. I love obstacle courses in the morning. Hey, you can combine that with foraging for food, so they have to climb under, climb over, pull, push things.

6:55It's great for meeting sensory needs. Give them an adult-type job. Hey, you could be the barista in our home in the morning. You've got to get up and get ready first, but then you could make us coffee. And if you do it in a really special or good way, you may actually earn a tip because our kids love adult-type jobs. Now, here's a tool for anxiety. And if you do struggle with this, go back and listen to the episode in early August on overcoming anxiety. But one of the best ways to do this is ask a teacher at the school to give your child a special job to do Oh man, jonathan. I look I could really use your help.

7:34You are so strong You're really good at screens, whatever it is Could you be here in the morning in my classroom like five minutes early every day? Because I could really use your help with this that way when your child wakes up in the morning Instead of being kind of freaked out by all the unknowns. It's like oh no my teacher needs my help That's a tool that we use. Okay, so let's go to, and by the way, I know I'm talking extra fast, but I have so many ideas and I want to get them in a quick time and respect your time. So tough, a tougher approach. And I did this with Casey. And here's the thing.

8:09Use these with wisdom. I would rather try everything else first before going the tough route, but sometimes you need to. Just remember, when I do tough discipline, there's no drama. It's an even matter-of-fact tone. I don't take it personally. I don't make it personal. Think about why your kids play video games and listen. Because there's not a mom video game and dad video game with different rules and expectations. The video game doesn't yell at your child or lecture, you know what, if you would have done it the right way, you wouldn't have lost. No, it just says, hey, here's the game. Here are the rules.

8:47Here's how it works. If you do it this way, you go to the next level. And if not, you have to start over. See, that's how I want your discipline to be. So the conversation, I'm going to do a quicker version of this. And most of these are going to be in the Discipline That Works program. And I give you lots of different variations of each. But let me just do this one this way. I'd say, Case, here's the deal. My time is really important. And you don't have to say this, but my time is really important. And so every minute that you are late causes me to be late for my work or during my day. So every minute that you are late, you choose to forfeit 10 minutes of your free time or screen time at night.

9:32Now, his response was always like, that's not fair. How come it's 10 minutes of mine? I lose 10 minutes for one minute late. I was like, well, I don't play fair. I play to win. and my time is very valuable. That's how I roll. So the first morning he came, got in the car, he was three minutes late. I held up the phone. He's like, dad, that's really good for me. And I said, you know what? That is, that is an improvement for you. But you chose to lose 30 minutes of your screen time tonight. And his response was, father, thank you for being consistent and following through. It makes me feel safe as a child.

10:07Yeah, that's not what he said. He was upset and he thought it was stupid and dumb. and why would anybody trust you as a parenting expert? This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. He wasn't mad at me. He was mad at himself. And by the way, on the first time, you could give your child a little bit of mercy and say, all right, I'm going to give you a mulligan this time, but tomorrow, if you're three minutes late, you lose 30 minutes. And then I just did what I said I was going to do. And that night when I came home, I was like, hey, just remember this morning you chose. And I like that language because he did choose that.

10:40now that's why I'm giving tools also I'm not just saying I'm not coming in right away like you know what if you're not on time tomorrow you lose all your stuff I'm giving tools but you chose that and so I wanted him to own that and so he was like oh this is dumb no reaction necessary no lecture you know what I gave you plenty of opportunities to be on time and if you would have been on time we don't have to do all of that I just said hey I'll see you tomorrow at 7 22 a.m in the car and from then on he did a really good job with that I have to tell this quick funny story so I uh we talk about in our program a lot about that idea of hey you just um you make a promise to your child hey I promise you if you do this this is the outcome and then I keep my promise and so this guy uh took it a little bit too far I think and he told his kids hey, Legos need to be off the floor in the next 13 minutes.

11:40I'm going to build a bonfire in the backyard and burn them. And the kids were like, he's not going to do it. Well, 13 minutes later, they saw smoke coming up from the backyard. What did they learn? Oh, crap. He meant it. So I think that's a little bit too far. I don't want you burning your kids Legos. But I like the principle, which is I'm a person of my word. You can count on me when I tell you something. So you could also flip this around a little bit too and say, so let's say you have to leave at 7 22 a.m. Maybe you say hey we've got to leave at 7 15 a.m. Well now you built in a buffer time of seven minutes so when they are inevitably late you're not really late and it still works out okay and you could flip it around and say hey if you are early then we will have time look if you're early from Monday through Thursday on Friday morning we'll go by x place maybe we'll get a smoothie for breakfast or stop at McDonald's and get something really healthy as a reward.

12:38Up to you. Okay, ownership. Ownership. You have to understand if you have a strong-willed child, it is one of the most important concepts that you will need throughout their whole life. Man, I love how our kids think. This mom told me, we were listening to your podcast, and my son heard about the boy in the ad for Cure Hydration drinking the adult flavors. and he said, I want to drink that Cure stuff too. Like you say, he won't do normal kid things, but now he's become the Cure electrolyte champion of the home. He mixes my drink for me every morning. I love this. And yeah, let's send our kids to school with water and Cure hydrating electrolyte powder because that's way healthier than expensive sports drinks.

13:24Cure's ingredients are simple and pure. Coconut water, pink Himalayan salt, and a burst of real fruit. I think your kids will love the Cure flavors, and you'll feel good giving them something healthy. And exciting news now, you can get Cure Hydration at your local Target or get 20 % off at CureHydration.com with code CALM. That's CureHydration.com, code CALM, for 20 % off your first order. We're talking on the podcast now about getting ready for back-to-school time. Here's another idea. Let your kids have some ownership of their homework space. Go to Wayfair.com. You'll find a huge assortment of desks, organizers, and school supplies that can help your visual learners.

14:10Let your kids pick out a few items. We switched one year to a standing desk so Casey could move while writing and doing work. It was a game changer. We love Wayfair.com because it's one-stop shopping right from the comfort of our home with fast free delivery even on those larger items. Oh, another idea. Get a whiteboard so you can visually lay out your schedule and chores. Wayfair makes this easy. Join Wayfair Rewards today to get 5 % back on every purchase and start saving on your next home upgrade. Head to Wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R dot com. Wayfair, every style, every home.

14:52So I really like giving kids ownership of their choices within my boundaries. I just encourage you, you're going to have to make your boundaries bigger with the strong-willed child because they're not going to do things the way that you want. And they're going to find weird creative ways to do things that irritate you. So I say, hey, here's my objective. Okay, that's what we're after. But I relinquish control over how you accomplish that. I don't care how you get it done as long as we get it done and that gives your kids some space to problem solve to be creative so in the let's say in the morning it was this hey I have one goal for you every morning I want you in the car or on that school bus at 7 22 a.m.

15:40I don't care what you look like I don't care what you smell like I don't care what's in your stomach just be on that bus 7 22 a.m. Look if you are smart enough to wear the clothes to bed that you're going to wear to school the next day beautiful you can roll out of bed at 7 21 grab that pop-tart that I know you hit underneath your bed you don't even have to have your shoes on you if you want to keep put your shoes on the school bus the day before and keep them there I don't care just be ready by 7 22. Now here's the hard part I do care how they get ready because you and I are good parents so we We want our kids to get up early, get some exercise and fresh air.

16:18And I want you to eat some blueberries because that's good antioxidants. And I want you to eat protein. And I want your brain ready to learn. And I want you to look nice so you're ready for school. And what I really want that for is so that I'm not embarrassed sending my child to school. How many of us do this one? This is an anxiety thing. Your child's going to come downstairs in shorts and a hoodie sweatshirt even when it's 22 degrees out. and you're going to be like, well, honey, you're going to catch a cold if you wear shorts to school. Well, you don't catch a cold from cold weather. It's from germs, right?

16:50It is our own anxiety of like, what are the other parents and teachers going to think if I send you to school like this? Relax, your sensory kids may always do that for the rest of their lives. I'm pretty much like that. Casey is like that. But there's also that anxiety of like, but I want them to eat healthy. but how many of you have found lecturing them about nutrition and the food pyramid which is wrong anyway right completely opposite of what it should be it doesn't matter they're never like mom dad i i didn't realize what i was putting into my body was so unhealthy but now you you explained it to me all of a sudden i want to make better choices no model it for yourself and i guarantee you if your kids don't eat a good breakfast and in third period every day their stomach is a little upset or hurts because they're hungry.

17:38Now, first, they're going to barter or steal someone else's food, which is fist bump. Good job being resourceful, right? But eventually, they're going to come downstairs and be like, I need to eat a healthier breakfast. And you can say, hey, I give you lots of options. Are you going to make something yourself? But I step back and look, if your kids get ready and they're on the school bus on time, you know what your appropriate responses at the end of the day, fist bump, hey, nice job making the bus. The hard part is I don't like the way they do it. I don't like how you get ready because I have a way in my mind of the way you're supposed to get ready.

18:15Remember, I did that on Sunday, kind of with giving kids ownership or talking about I never liked how Casey got ready in the morning. So give your kids some ownership. If you have our programs, go through the Strong Willed Child program. It's one of the first ones I want you to listen to because I go through a lot of examples on ownership. Okay, number five, and you know I'm always going to close with connection. Let me give you three examples here. So let's say I've got to take my daughter to a doctor's appointment. I come in the afternoon and I yell up to a room like, hey, Grace, Grace, come on, come downstairs.

18:49I don't hear a thing. Hey, Grace, Grace, come on, honey, we need to leave. And you can hear the tone in your voice change. Grace, Grace, if I have to tell you one more time, which guarantees you, you're going to have to tell her like eight more times. So am I saying this is right? No, but it usually is how it works. So you walk upstairs or wherever to her bedroom and you go in a room and you sit on the side of her bed and you say, you know what, honey, I'm tired too. I don't really want to go, but we have to. And there's something about that of connecting, of like even saying like, I know, I don't want to do it either.

19:28Rather than a long lecture about how she needs to be responsible and how much money this appointment costs you if you don't go. No, identify. And I may, I don't have to, but I could say, look, after the appointment, why don't we stop by X and get a smoothie together? Is that bribery? I don't know. Maybe. And I'm okay with it sometimes in some circumstances. There's nothing wrong. But the real thing is you are connecting with your child. So this is a really cool example. And I like giving these from real life moms and dads. So this mom said, hey, I've been working through your programs. And one of the most important benefits I've seen so far is I'm anticipating.

20:10I'm getting ahead of things. And I'm understanding what my daughter is going to do even before she does it instead of reacting all the time. And so I've heard you talk about connecting in the morning. So my daughter is obsessed with Outer Banks. So we do actually, we leave at 7.20 in the morning. And I used her example and I said, honey, if you're ready by 7.11 a.m. I like interesting time periods especially for our neurodivergent kids because it sticks in the brain a little bit it just it stands out and they can remember it hey if you're ready by 7-11 we will have nine minutes because I'm going to be all ready every morning at 7-11 and if you are that gives us nine minutes and I will watch clips from your favorite show we'll talk about it and the mom said a couple things happened one their daughter now is getting ready by like 7-02 two and she's like mom I'm ready are you because she likes that connection time and the mom said you know I for the first like five days I kind of got tired of watching the clips and I'm like okay it's working but do I have to do this every morning and then she said one day her daughter came downstairs and said mom can you help me I've got I've got a little drama going on with my friends at school and she was like that that is what I am looking for because you made that space for her in that time and connected now you're getting to the deeper things rather than it being just like a rush job for the whole thing okay love that now here's one of my favorite things I love look the millennial couples and the young couples out there who are working so hard at this I know it's hard out there.

21:57And you can't, like, I did an Instagram post on this because it's very true. And I'll do it right here really quickly in case you didn't hear it. The amount of pressure that is on you. When we were a young couple, I was 30 years old. I was making$60 ,000 a year, which is a really good salary. But our first home cost$120 ,000, two times our salary. you there's no way young couples now can find a decent home or any home for two times many of you are paying four times five times six times your salary plus you have student loan debt that we didn't have you also have child care expenses because back then my wife could stay home with our son and so it is hard but I do want to affirm you and let you know you guys are working your butts off so don't listen to those older generations who are like millennials don't work hard no you're working really hard and you know what else you're doing?

22:52You're prioritizing the right things, which is your friendships, your family, that the millennial dads are really engaged with their kids and you're taking advantage of experiences. And you know what else you're doing? You're breaking generational cycles. And that's cool. And that relates to this example because a lot of these couples, you're kind of competitive with this in kind of a fun way. So this mom an email and said, I was at my wit's end because I kept yelling like for the umpteenth time for our son to get ready in the morning and he didn't. And I watched my husband get up and he went upstairs.

23:29He sat on our son's bed and said, hey, thanks for clearing the table last night. And then he whispered and said, I hid your storm trooper. Bet you can't find it while I'm getting breakfast ready and a few minutes later I'm listening to them laugh in the kitchen and they're talking about Star Wars and that was so different from how it used to go because my husband was kind of raised by parents like you and was more intense like come on you better get downstairs or else and I watched him and heard him connecting with our son and having such a good time and later I was like where did that come from and he looked at me and he said honey everybody knows connection and a treasure hunt always work and I was like what and he goes well you bought those programs from that calm guy and I listened to them last night after you went to bed and it was such it's such a cool thing to see couples really working at this and using all these different tools so let's wrap this up this way I'd encourage you number one work on controlling yourself work on that even matter-of-fact tone, even sitting sometimes, lying down.

24:38In fact, I just had a dad today on Instagram, was texting with him a little, messaging with him, and he's got four kids, and he said, we had some big fighting going on. And he said he took a chance, walked into the room, and laid down on the floor, and I was expecting him to say, and they all jumped on my back, and I had to go to the hospital. But what he said is we had a train of everyone giving back massages. And I was like, how cool is that? So tools to succeed. That's a big one. Stimulate the brain, forge for food, obstacle course, adult type job. You can do the tough discipline. Just do it in an even matter of fact tone with no drama.

25:22Keep your promises, moms and dads. Give ownership. Give your kids a little leeway. Hey, how do you want to do this? I'm okay with whatever you want to do as long as we accomplish the objective together. And then connection always changes behavior more than anything else. So I'll probably do another one on get kids moving because I have another eight or ten ideas, but I'll maybe do that later this fall. So moms and dads, thank you for working so hard at this. If we can help you in any way, reach out to Casey at C-A-S-E-Y at celebrate calm.com. If you need help financially getting our programs, let us know.

25:57If you need to know what order, we usually send and say, I want you to do 30 days to calm ADHD university so you're ready for the new school year, the strong will child program. If you have older kids, no BS program. We'll help you with all of that stuff. And as you go through the programs, you can email us and we can make it a little bit more specific if we need to. We love you all. We respect you all. Okay, let me know how this goes with getting kids. I'm curious what works with your kids. Just email us, let us know. All right, love you all. Bye-bye.