Quick Tips for Dads Ep. 2: Disrespect & Backtalk

0:00So we just got back from our annual family vacation at the beach. Guess what everyone was jealous of? our cozy earth cooling bamboo sheets and stylish beach towel, which is heavenly soft and dry so quickly. Yeah, we love our cozy earth bamboo sheets so much, we travel with them. Look, after a long summer day hiking or working outside, being in the sand, there is nothing more satisfying than slipping under the heavenly softness of our cozy earth bamboo sheets. They naturally wick away heat moisture from your body and that helps you sleep several degrees cooler and lounging around in our cozy earth bamboo shorts t-shirts and pjs all summer 10 out of 10 comfortable and cooling made from viscose from bamboo breathable soft and built for summer head to cozy earth.com use my code calm for an exclusive 20 off that's code calm for an exclusive 20 off at cozy earth.com and please tell cozy earth the calm guy sent you So you've got a child who's defiant, who talks back to you, who is blatantly disrespectful.

1:08And I know my initial impulse as a dad is, hey, I've got to shut that down. My dad would have backhanded us. I want to show you a different way to handle this without being weak, without being permissive. So welcome. This is Kirk Martin, host of the Calm Parenting Podcast. This is the second episode of our Quick Tips for Dads series that we're doing. I'm trying to keep these seven to nine minutes. And by the way, welcome, because I know there are a lot of moms who are listening to this, and I appreciate you forwarding this to your husband. So look, I get this. In that moment, we want to send the message.

1:44It is never okay to talk to your parents like that. You will never do it again. 100 % on board. But you don't have to hit a kid, and you don't have to shut them down. Because most of you nowadays are not going to backhand your child. But we do sometimes kind of backhand them verbally or emotionally where we shut them down. That's what I had learned from my own dad, which was fear and intimidation. I have three brothers. The truth is we never really respected our dad. We just feared him because he was abusive. And I don't want, look, I can change a child's behavior through fear and intimidation.

2:29But then my child doesn't respect me and it doesn't really change their heart inside. It just means they're afraid. And the downside to that is kids grow up afraid to question other authority figures. And you don't want that because we want kids to respectfully question other people. And sometimes I think our parents shut us down because they were insecure. or someone like my dad, he didn't know how to handle anything emotionally. So it was better if he just shut it all down. But then a lot of times you also raise, look, this happens all the time. You raise daughters who don't know how to speak up and then they get a used, they end up marrying controlling men.

3:15It doesn't work well. And then the other big missed opportunity is this. My dad had a lot of life experience. I mean, he grew up during the Depression, first one in his family to college, and then he went into World War II and served in the military for 25 years, later in intelligence. He had a lot of wisdom. Guess what? We never got to benefit from any of that because he shut us down and we never had those conversations. So here's one way you can handle that. The next time your child comes and asks you for money. hey dad mom come take me somewhere hey buy me this you just simply refuse and say hey honey that's not how life works we did this with i did this with our son all the time hey case that's just not how life works you don't get to treat people like that and then expect them to turn around and do kind things for you it's just not how life works see there's no drama in that i'm not having a snotty tone.

4:19I'm not being resentful that they talk to me like that. But there is a better way to handle that. So in our series, we go through one thing to stop doing, one thing to start doing. So here's one thing I want to encourage you to stop doing, men. Stop taking things personally. Look, we're grownups. We are the adults. So stop reacting. When you react to your child, they have complete power over your emotions and your behavior. This will irritate some of you, but I'm going to say it anyway. Stop being a victim because we're like, I can't believe my child would talk to me like this. Why? Why can you not believe that?

4:57This is what kids have done for centuries. What happened? I'm not a victim. I'm the grown adult. And then some of us, if you're doing too much for your kids, right? I do so much for these kids and I sacrifice so they can have more than I did. Well, that's your issue. If you're doing too much for your kids and creating entitled kids, well then stop that. So what do we want to start doing? That comes next. Men, I'm going to ask you to listen to about a 60 second ad right here because I make two and a half cents off of it and I'll be right back. So I love getting messages that aren't about parenting.

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6:15That's awesome. Look, if you need to resupply on the road, you can now get Cure at Target or get 20 % off at curehydration.com with code CALM. That's curehydration.com, code CALM. fact so what i want you to start doing is teaching your kids discipline literally means to teach teach and problem solve guys we're naturally good at that so think about this analogy say you have a really valuable employee at work and this employee may be a little bit more emotional and intense and that might partly be why they're so valuable because they're so good at certain things. But you know, occasionally they'll go off.

7:01They get frustrated at the leadership of the company, i.e. parents or co-workers, i.e. siblings. And so you can fire this employee. You have that right to do, but this is a valuable employee and you've put a lot of time into this person. So you know what we usually do in the work world? We go and we find that employee and say, hey, let's go for a walk. Hey, let's go grab something to eat. And then when we're doing that, because now we've de-escalated, we say, hey, I'm curious, what's going on? What's going on now? And what are we doing? We're teaching. We're problem solving. We're making it very clear.

7:39Look, this is not going to work for you. You will not stay employed at this company if you continue to lash out at people like this. But now I've heard you. I understand the frustration. So here's how you can handle in a better way. You don't react. You don't take things personally. But now I begin to teach and problem solve. So look, we'll do that with an employee. But our kids are even more valuable than just an employee. And sometimes we just are kind of careless. And we just lash out. I can't believe that my child would do this. So instead, next time, I encourage you, don't react. You can do the tougher approach.

8:24Like, hey, that's just not how life works. But I want you to start doing with your kids, treating your kids sometimes like you treat colleagues at work or employees where you're taking time and trying to understand, okay, I get where you're coming from. So let's do it a different way. and you're teaching and showing your employees how to be successful, instead of just punishing your kids for messing up, let's teach them how to be successful and how to do it right so they have your wisdom. And I really want you to be the person that your kids, when they become teenagers, that they come, I want them coming to you, not to their friends They're friends because their friends have horrible advice.

9:13I want them coming to you, dads. I want them to get your wisdom. And when you show, hey, I don't freak out when my child does something. I don't create a lot of drama around it. Well, now during the teen years, what I found is my son would come to me because I was the one person in his life and one thing that was not filled with drama. Okay, work on that this week. in a couple weeks on Wednesday, September 24th. I'm doing a whole podcast, 22 minutes on how to discipline and deescalate when kids are defined. So watch for that one. I appreciate you listening. All right, guys, lots of respect for you.

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