Quick Tips for Dads Ep. 6: How to Lead Kids Who Are Upset or Won’t Listen

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0:45Make an impact on your child's learning. Get IXL now. Calm Parenting Podcast listeners get an exclusive 20 % off an IXL membership when you sign up today at IXL.com. slash Kirk. Visit ixl.com slash Kirk to get the most effective learning program at the best price. So how do you get your kids to listen to you to follow your lead? How do you get them to calm down when they're really upset? I want to give you some tools to use on this episode of quick tips for dads and moms who are listening. So let's jump right in. So here's what I want you to stop doing. And this will sound kind of funny. Stop being a dad or a parent for just a few days.

1:29And here's what I mean. Sometimes we get into this role where it's like, well, I'm the parent. That means I have to walk around and discipline and motivate my kids. And we get kind of overly responsible and we get overly reactive because we're like, well, I have to correct my kids all the time. I have to take care of this. So I want you to stop being that reactive dad or parent whose job is to discipline and just get kids to behave. It's not that I want kids to be undisciplined and misbehave. Look, your kids will be disciplined in time if you are disciplined and if you model this for them. But sometimes we get into parent mode in which we're always kind of upset and frustrated.

2:11We take everything personally and that's when things escalate. I remember this huge transformation for me when I changed my mindset because I was always taught to believe like, OK, my job is to be chief disciplinarian in our home. So my job is to go around our home and catch everyone doing things wrong and then and then correct them. And apparently wives don't like that either. And so neither do kids. And so I switched to, no, my job is to be the chief source of wisdom in this home. My job is to impart life wisdom, to teach, to show, and to do that patiently. And I'll tell you an insight I've had that's been kind of embarrassing lately.

2:59Casey and I do, our son, we do a lot of hiking. We do some really hard hikes out here. And I'm not great all the time in snow or with heights. And what I've noticed is Casey is really patient with me while he's leading us on some of these hikes. And it occurs to me he is more patient with me than I was with him when he was little. And I think it was partly because of that role of like, oh, my job is just to walk around and be kind of upset and catch kids doing things wrong and being frustrated. So stop doing that. Now, here I want to give you three different things to start doing. Here's one. Imagine yourself as the quarterback leading a football team in a comeback in the fourth quarter.

3:44So think about this. You come into the house at the end of the day. You call a huddle with the kids. And young kids, they love that. You get down on the floor on one knee like a quarterback, which is kind of cool. And you have a huddle. And then you can say confidently, guys. And I even like this tone of voice. so guys we've got a really busy night we got to help mom so here's what we're going to do you guys ready and now you lead with confidence and what I like about that is instead of me coming in this is how I used to come into the house I'd be frustrated with work and with traffic and everything that we had to do and I just start kind of barking things out Casey get downstairs we've got to visit.

4:30And when we do those things, it just creates chaos in the home. But instead, I'm coming in as that quarterback who's calm, cool, in control. You know that quarterback that can always lead the fourth quarter comebacks. And now I'm leading my kids. Okay, I've got two more for you. I'm going to ask you to listen to this 60-second ad because I want my two and a half cents. You know your child better than anyone. So when something shifts, like they're suddenly anxious around meals, cutting out foods, losing weight, or their personality just feels different. Something more serious may be going on. When eating disorders show up, they can completely hijack a child's brain.

5:10That moodiness, withdrawal, combative behavior isn't them, it's the illness. The good news is the earlier you get support, the easier recovery is. And that's why I want to reintroduce you to Equip. Equip is a fully virtual eating disorder treatment program that It brings best-in-class, evidence-based care right to your home. Every family gets an entire team, a therapist, dietician, medical provider, and mentors who've been through this themselves. They're experts in treating all eating disorders, even lesser-known ones like ARFID. There's no wait list. It's covered by most insurance plans. And you can talk to an expert right away to get answers.

5:48So if something in your gut is telling you to look deeper, listen to it. Visit equip.health.com to get a free consultation with Equip. That's equip.health.com. So do you know why I really ask you to listen to the ads? It's this. My dad was abusive, overbearing. And so I have always struggled with that kind of fear with men of asking them to do things because I'm always waiting either to be kind of be hit or yelled at by my dad. And so this is my way of saying, hey, dads, I know because I know men don't like when other people sell them things, right? Like, hey, listen to our ads. So I'm purposely doing it because I know that some people don't like it.

6:35And I'm working. I'm always working on my own issues. And so that's just one way that I do that because I'm tempted to say, well, do I really want to ask men to stop and listen to that ad? and yeah I do because that's kind of for my own growth and I make two and a half cents. Okay here's another one. Imagine yourself as that platoon captain on the battlefield whose men are looking at him under fire. Are you freaking out in those situations? When your child is freaking out do you begin freaking out? Because if you do that will just escalate the situation. So be the quarterback. be the platoon captain.

7:17Here's another one. Imagine yourself as an ER doctor. Someone comes in all bloody. There's chaos in there. That's kind of your home at times. What does the ER doctor do? They don't start yelling like, why are you bleeding all over my emergency room? I don't know what to do. You're going to die. No, that's what we do sometimes as parents. But instead, the ER doctor takes the vitals, stabilizes the patient, and then leads their team towards stabilizing and healing that patient. They don't start lecturing the patient about why did you come in here all bloody and get in that fight at the bar. They don't.

7:55And so if that helps you conceptualize this over Thanksgiving break, practice that. Become that person. Say, okay, what would an ER doctor, what would a quarterback do in this situation? Do it with your relatives watching. If you frequently get judged by relatives, which you probably do, I'm going to go through that. I'm going to go through how to avoid public meltdowns and install a growth mindset in your kids in the next three episodes of our regular Calm Parenting podcast. So listen to that. I think you're going to find it really, really helpful. Okay, men and women, thank you for listening.

8:33appreciate you being willing to work on this and change. Love you all and respect you. Bye-bye.