Which Consequences Work for Lying, Disrespect & Defiance? #551

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2:18How do you handle those situations? Are there consequences that will work during those times? 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 sale at CelebrateCalm.com. So you have very strong-willed kids. They're not always going to walk around and say, yes, mother, of course, father. These are kids who have definite opinions, who are impulsive, who are often very moody. We've talked about these kids that oftentimes when they process their disappointment and emotions verbally, and some of you have kids who kind of came out of the womb, like our son with boxing gloves on and a pretty strong mouth.

3:00And so we don't want to do the two extremes. I don't want to say, well, she was upset. It's okay. I don't want to excuse the behavior. I also don't want to go the opposite route and just shut kids down. You're never going to talk to me like that, young man, because they're just going to look at you like my son did at one point and say, um, just did. So I want to give you some different ways to handle this. So I'm going to go through three, four, maybe five different situations that you will encounter with kids of all ages. Now, I want to start with this one because it's one of my favorite ones ever.

3:37And this had to do with my niece, Jordan. And I changed the name for protection. But Jordan, she was a tough kid. She was adopted. She had some issues coming out of that. And so it was hard for her. And like many of our kids, she just struggled being around a ton of people. and the scene is it's Christmas time so we're all at my mom's house my brothers all of our kids so it's chaotic it's noisy there's competition involved because of all the nephews and nieces and she didn't always have the best behavior so one time there's this one Christmas where she came to me and there were these Christmas cookies on this uh uh plate and she said Uncle Kirk you need to watch these for me.

4:25Make sure no one takes these last three cookies. Well, I don't always do demanding, and I did want to see how this worked, and so I made sure that by the time she came back, the cookies were gone. Now, a little bit of that is me provoking, right? So just know that, and I knew that at the time. So you don't want to intentionally just provoke your kids to anger, but when she came back into the kitchen. She looked at the plate. She saw that the cookies were gone. And without blinking, she looked me straight in the eyes and said, Uncle Kirk, I don't like you. Now, I had every right to take that personally, to give her a consequence, say, you know what, if you don't apologize right now, young lady, you're not getting any Christmas gifts from me.

5:17But why would I do that does that actually change anything or solve anything i i'm just forcing an apology against her will in that case i look i knew she was just an upset kid it's like your toddlers and little ones who are like i hate you mommy do they really hate you no should they say that no but they're little kids who didn't get their way because you were being a good parent and just said no and they're having a tantrum and so one of the first things they go to is I hate you mommy because they want to pull on your heart strings and they want to get a reaction out of you. Don't bite on that stuff.

5:57We're grown adults. Just know that this stuff is going to happen. So there is no need for a big reaction. Could I have given her a consequence for that? Sure. Look, you have to do consequences to put boundaries on things. But in this case, I didn't. But just don't assume or think that consequences actually change human behavior all that well. They don't. And usually you have to go two steps beyond that. So a couple hours later, I said, hey, Jordan, listen, why don't you go up and ask grandma if we can get some cookie dough out of the fridge and we could actually make some more Christmas cookies.

6:38So Jordan runs upstairs. She comes right back down. She said, Grandma said we could bake, we could make cookies. Now, here's the thing. To this day, I am 99.7 % sure that my niece didn't ask my mom if we could actually bake cookies. Why? Look, she lied. She lied right to my face. And I understand that because why would she tell the truth? Why would she actually ask her grandmother? because, see, if you ask your grandma, grandma could have said no. And so by shortcutting this whole situation, she guaranteed the outcome, which is she wanted to bake the cookies. Now, you are going to have to wrestle with this and wrestle with your child's nature.

7:30Well, you're letting her get away with lying, and that's an issue of personal integrity. And what is she going to do later in life? look I make distinctions at times and I read the moment and I also get inside the head of a kid this is a kid who there were not a lot of positive things going on in her life she really wanted to to bake cookies and it wasn't a big deal right I don't know if my mom would have had control issues and like no you can't do it but my mom pretty much let the grandkids do anything so I wasn't moved by that. You can disagree with that. And I could have shaken my head at her and said, you know what, Jordan, earlier today, you were disrespectful to a grownup, to your uncle.

8:12And now you just lied to me about what grandma said. You know what, if you don't learn, I could have done that, but it wouldn't have done anything. So we began making cookies together. And there are a few things in here that I was really looking for and that I hope you can take us some lessons. One, we're standing side by side now. And there's something powerful about not looking your kids in the eyes when you want to have a good talk with them, a big talk side by side. We had our hands in the cookie dough. You have very sensory kids. It is often very calming for them to build with things, to make things, to get into messes.

8:55I get this all the time. Parents will ask like, oh, my four-year-old, five-year-old, they're always making messes. They go into the bathroom and they're smearing toothpaste on things. What consequence can I give? Look, you can give a consequence. Make them clean it up. Have them clean it up. That's a perfectly fine consequence. You know what? No more treats, no more toys until you clean up the mess that you made in the bathroom. That's perfectly fine. But that doesn't change the underlying fact and need that is being met, which is you have kids who like to experiment with things and they like to see how things work and they tinker with things.

9:32And they're very kinesthetic and they're physical and they like to feel things and push things. See, just giving a consequence all day doesn't really get to the root of the issue. It lets her know, hey, yeah, smearing toothpaste all over your bathroom, yeah, that's not working here. So I give the consequence, but I don't assume that that's going to keep her from doing it next time. Because next time your little kid or even older kid gets an impulse to get into something, they don't always put it together. Like, oh, yeah, I remember last week or two days ago, this is what happened. They don't care.

10:09And so I always go the extra step. And so giving your kids very tactile things to do, meeting sensory needs, proactively having that obstacle course in the backyard in the basement where they have to push and pull and climb under and climb over things, shoveling mulch, doing climbing trees. Those things are all really good for your kids. So my niece and I are there and our hands are in the cookie dough and we're side by side and we're talking and having a good time. and in the midst of that with no prompting see that's part of it too there was no pushing you know you know what Jordan before we go forward anymore I think that you owe me an apology there's no need for that because you know what I got hey Uncle Kirk I'm sorry about what I said earlier and then a couple seconds later you're my favorite uncle because I was making cookies with her and she had a really big sweet tooth and so look I know part of that I know it was sincere apology because what?

11:09I'd led her to a calm place. There wasn't all of this pressure. And so I got that. And it's also slightly manipulative because I give really good Christmas gifts and she knew that. So after we got done baking the cookies, this is important. Two more important points to this. How many cookies did my niece keep for herself? The answer is zero because she didn't need to. She only was hoarding the other ones because her life always felt out of control. So by controlling three cookies, it gave her some sort of sense of her world being in control. It's not unlike many of you where before you go to bed, you have to clean the kitchen sink.

11:47It gives you a sense of control. She had a very giving heart. And so she went out, she gave away all of those cookies because she had a giving heart. And she loved when people said, oh, that is such a creative one. I love that. Now, the next Christmas comes, we're all together again. And my niece is a little bit older and she said, hey, Uncle Kirk, do you want to go get a frozen yogurt? She loved frozen yogurt. So I took her to the local mall and what she really wanted was to talk to me. And she started opening up and saying, Uncle Kirk, it always feels like I'm in trouble. It feels like no one likes me at school.

12:25And what hit me at the time was, oh, this related back a year ago to how I handled her saying, I don't like you, Uncle Kirk. It was because in that moment, I was showing her how to control herself. I was leading her to calm. I was building up the positives. See, I'm telling most of these awful situations, you can turn them into positives. So, well, what do you do when you have a kid who's just disrespectful and how they talk to you or in their tone? because that's going to happen. So this is one of my favorite stories about Casey. So he was, I don't know how old he was at this time, maybe eight, nine, 10 or something.

13:11I asked him to do something and his response was, wow. And we always joke that Casey was too lazy to say whatever. So when he was disrespectful, he had to just make it three letters, wow. Now at the moment, in the moment that shocked me, I was like, wait, I was used to a really strong willed kid. But for him to come up with wow, which is really is the height of disrespect for what I just said. Inside, I'll tell you what my honest thought was. One was I wanted to wring his neck. And I was like, what? You know, when I was a kid, I could have never said that. I wonder, you know, this kid. That was one of them.

13:48And then the other part was like, you know what? Respect to you, my friend. Like that is a fantastic comeback because all other kids roll their eyes and say whatever. but you came up with wow I like your ingenuity there and your individuality but I gathered myself didn't take it personally didn't react to it and I just said you know I appreciate that response I did I actually said like hey that was pretty ingenious there what I want you to know is you can be proud of that because I know you'd probably been practicing that and waiting for the right time to use it, all I want you to know is it's just not going to work well here, right?

14:28That's never going to work for you because the next time you come and say, hey, dad, you have to take me to hockey practice. Hey, dad, I want to go buy this. My response is going to be, wow, right? And I was very clear of like, you can be disrespectful. Just know that I have 40 years of experience being pretty strong-willed myself. See, that's where having a very clear boundary, but without reacting to it. I can't believe that you would say wow to me. I can't believe after all I do for you that you would be that disrespectful. What do you think you're going to do in life? How are people going to treat you?

15:04No, I didn't do that. I was just very clear that that would never work and that he would not get anything else from me until that attitude went away, some of that was him trying to see where the boundaries were. What can I get away with? And just because you don't yell at your kids and go off on them doesn't mean you're letting them get away with things. He knew very clearly that if he had come later that day or the next day and said, Dad, you have to take me here, I would have just said, wow. And I would not have taken him. So I want you to be firm in how you do some of those things. Now, my overall things for kids in that age group is, I'll give you my favorite thing to do.

15:49I ask them to do something. I give them a direction and then I step out of the room because I kind of expect pushback from strong-willed kids. And I also proactively, when I give them jobs to do, I give them adult type jobs. I make it a challenge. I make it interesting. I give them ownership over how they do it. A lot of the disrespect we can overcome just by doing things differently, proactively. Now, the one I wanted to get to for older kids, and this could be a seven-year-old as well, but it's a very common example. This was kind of like mom and daughter of mom asked her daughter to do something and daughter rolls her eyes at her mother.

16:32Now, here's what usually happens in our home. Then we, mom might respond with, you know what? When I was a kid, I never did that to my mother. If I would have done that to my mother, blah, blah, blah, blah. After all I do, and you're going to roll your eyes at me, and then dad comes into the room, and dad's upset because his wife is upset. And one daughter, by moving a few eye muscles, just got two grown adults to react to her. So she's getting that need for brain stimulation and intensity in negative ways. And you've heard, I'm not going to go through how to do this in positive ways, but you've heard me say this, but here's where I want to go with this.

17:07You don't have to have this long talk, but I wanted to do this to kind of demonstrate some principles. What mom could say to her daughter in that case is, hey honey, I don't need you to respect me. See, I have something called self-respect and self-respect moms and dads is really important because if you have to demand respect from another person, Oh, you don't have it. And what it says is I need you to behave and respect me. So I feel respected. No way. I am not giving anybody else that power over me. No matter what anybody does to me, I always have the power to demonstrate self-respect. and it can look like this.

17:48Look, if you're going to roll your eyes or talk or say whatever or talk disrespectfully to me, here's what I want you to know. The next time you want something, do not expect me to get up out of my comfortable chair, to go out in the car, to drive through snow or rain or traffic, to take you to an extracurricular that costs way too much and that you're not even good at and won't practice at. I'm kidding on the last couple of things. You can use sarcasm inside your brain and heart, but don't say it. But it is very reasonable to say, hey, look, I'm cool. If you want to talk to me like that, you can.

18:29Because I can't always control what you do. I can't control how you behave. But I have 100 % control over what I do. And what I'm very clear about is if you are going to treat me that way, Do not ever expect me to get up out of my chair, go through traffic and take you to your extracurricular or to buy things for you. That is not how life works, not how I roll. And I like getting that down. Even I like short phrases like not going to work in this home. Not how I roll. See, that's demonstrating self-respect. Now, you can go further and you can say, honey, the reason I want you to respect me is not for me.

19:10I don't need it. It's because when you respect your parents, it's good for you See what I've found in life and I do like that phrasing Hey, something i've discovered in life is that when you respect older people when you respect bosses When you respect your parents things just tend to go better for you when that happens So i'm going to walk out of the room I'm going to go get a drink go to the bathroom when I get back Why don't we try that again? And you can see if you get a better or different result Does that does that make sense? Okay, so I can do that now if I think there's something deeper going on I can then invite my daughter or son and say hey I've heard that tone.

19:53It usually tells me something's going on at school with one of your friends So if you want to come and have a snack with me if you want to go walk the dog with me I'd love to listen and help you out with that because now there's an invitation and again it's like with my niece i guarantee while you're walking with them or having a snack you will get mom sorry i shouldn't have rolled my eyes at you and you will build that trust now quickly on this we get that i've been getting this and i wanted to address it like well you say you don't like consequences well i don't i i do consequences i'm just not under the illusion that they actually change behavior all that well because they usually don't get to the root of the issue, but you've got to do consequences.

20:35So dad just emailed and he had said, hey, our son is using alcohol right now. And I've heard your dad say he doesn't do consequences. No, you've got to do them. But here's the difference. So if I have a teenager who is starting to do drugs or is drinking, maybe even vaping, my consequences, hey, I just want you to know when you're doing those things, absolutely no use of the car. Like the car is done. Driver's license taken away. That's a fair consequence. That's the right consequence because there could be deadly consequences for letting your child drive. But here's the difference. I don't think that taking away the car is going to get your child to stop doing whatever they're doing because it doesn't meet the root need.

21:23So I give the consequence. So we provide some safety and boundaries here. But the real work that needs to be done is to figure out, hey, why have you started smoking weed? Why are you taking edibles? Why are you drinking? What's going on? I want to help you with that. Because they may be doing it to relieve anxiety. They may be doing it because they're under so much stress. I'm not making an excuse, but we all do stuff like this. So it may be that they're not doing well in school or don't have a lot of friends. They're depressed over that. I want to get to the root of the issue. So in all these cases, I can give consequences, but I'm always going the extra step or two to get to the emotional part of this, if there is one, so that that, see, that changes behavior long-term.

22:19In my son's case, when he was like, wow, there was nothing emotional going on there. That was just purely him looking for a reaction and seeing what he could get away with. And if I would have overreacted with a long lecture, I can't believe that you would say wow to me. Well, then he would have figured, oh, my dad's triggered by that. What else can I do to him? But when I addressed it by saying, hey, nice try there, son. Just want you to know that is really going to work against you. So let's try it differently. See, now you can handle it. But in all the cases, let me just reiterate as we close up, there is no drama.

23:02whether I'm disciplining a toddler, a four-year-old, a nine-year-old, a 15-year-old. What I always come down to is there is no drama. I am short, sweet as much as I can, even matter-of-fact tone. I like with older kids, when I talk to them, going out for a late-night talk, going out to eat somewhere a little bit later when it's dark. It's really effective with these kids to get to the root of it. and at the end of all of this it's the one thing I always want you to hear it's about the relationship relationship and connection changes behavior more than anything else in the first example with my niece that connection and relationship helped her to apologize but also to come to me and ask for my help with some deeper things later.

23:56The connection with your kids when they get into the teen years is paramount. You can't consequence a teenager into better behavior. You're going to have to do consequences, right? So if they're like, oh, I'm not turning in my iPhone at night. Okay, good. Well, you just don't have service anymore. That's fine. But I always want to go to the relationship, to the connection. So let's practice this this week. I hope all of you have instances where your kids are defiant. And I hope they do listen to this and you try the wow thing on you sometime instead of whatever, or someone was very efficient in his defiance.

24:35But what I'm most interested in is how you respond to it, because that's what you have 100 % control over. So I hope this happens to you this week. You now have some tools. We have an entire program called Stop Defiance and disrespect. And so that's part of the big package that's on sale along with discipline and 13 other programs. So if you need help, reach out to Casey, let us know. Let's practice this week. Okay, moms and dads, this is hard raising these strong will kids, but I know you can do it. I respect you for breaking those old patterns. You're doing an awesome job. Love you all. Bye-bye.