Podcast Transcript
Attendees:
Kirk Martin, Joshua Boswell, Margie Boswell
Transcript:
Joshua Boswell: Hello everyone. Welcome to the Happy Family Club podcast. We're so excited to have Kirk Martin here on our show today. And I'm actually gonna let Margie do a little introduction, if I can.
Margie Boswell: Great! Well…
Joshua Boswell: You’re so much better at it!
Margie Boswell: I don’t know. Thanks for joining us though Kirk. We're really happy you're here.
Kirk Martin: I’m super excited. Super excited.
Margie Boswell: Yeah, so glad you're here. Kirk has done some really great work helping children, especially strong-willed children, right? And children that don't really listen or have meltdowns or don't respond to the consequences that are given. And Kirk and actually his son Casey have helped over a million parents in all these different 19 different countries, I guess, with a lot of real practical, life-changing strategies, and how to actually work with these types of children. He's actually specialized in ADHD, haven't you Kirk?
Kirk Martin: Yes.
Margie Boswell: So we're excited to have you share some of this to help us and all of our listeners to improve our parenting with these types of children.
Joshua Boswell: Actually Margie, before we started, Margie said, finally I can find somebody that can help you, honey!
Margie Boswell: No…
Joshua Boswell: So I’m gonna take extra notes and really we're gonna be good with this.
Margie Boswell: Yeah. So what I love, Kirk, is your focus on helping parents understand the relationship they have and how God sees us as children and helping us to have a heart in the same way God does. It's beautiful that connection that you make. Because that's the only surefire connection. We're excited to dive in with you. So thank you again for being here.
Kirk Martin: No, thank you guys. I love what you're doing and am super happy to be part of it.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah, wonderful.
Margie Boswell: Great.
Joshua Boswell: So as you know, we love asking this question about, what's one major thing that parents can do to create more joy and happiness in their family? And again, we're always quick to say, we're not looking for quick thrills and frills. We're looking for real, deep, lasting joy and happiness. And when we saw your stuff we thought, Oh, that's the guy to talk to about this because you have so many great insights. So before we get there, can you tell us a little bit about your background? I mean, how does a guy get to where you're at right now? It's such an unusual thing. All the children you've mentored and the families you've worked with… That is so unique in the world today. So, how did you get here?
Kirk Martin: It was… I will blame our son.
Joshua Boswell: Okay!
Kirk Martin: He was the strong little kid that came out of the womb with boxing gloves on. And my dad’s career was military. So fear and intimidation.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah. Yeah.
Kirk Martin: My way or the highway. And so I kind of inherited that from my dad. And when you try that with a strong-willed child, they tend to fight back even harder.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: What I eventually learned was: I was the one who needed to change, right? And you're going to ask me the one thing we talk about. And it's this realization that the only person in life that I can truly control is myself.
Joshua Boswell: Mmm.
Kirk Martin: And the quickest way to change your child's behavior, and we'll go through this, is to first control yourself.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: And so I spent nine years, I was like… I would plead with God. You need to change this kid. Why did you give us this kid? Why doesn't he behave? Why does he melt down? Why doesn’t he care about consequences? And I started hearing that kind of still small little voice saying, you know, asking me three questions. The first was, What if I created your son like this on purpose?
Joshua Boswell: Wow.
Kirk Martin: And what if you by trying to change him are frustrating my purposes for your son? And then the third question was, What if instead of trying to change your son, you're the one who needs to change?
Joshua Boswell: Hmm.
Kirk Martin: And I'm a guy, so I blocked that one out for a long time. But when I finally got a hold of that, I noticed I had so much influence over Casey, not by forcing him, but just by modeling it.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: And then you go back to Jesus of discipling. Discipling/discipline. It means to teach and teach by modeling. And so I'll try to make a long story short, which is after we had some success with Casey we noticed there's so many kids that are strong willed, kids on the spectrum, who just get labeled.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: Rebellious, bad, defiant kids. But usually they're just really bright, frustrated kids. So rather than bring them into a therapeutic office, we opened up our home. And the idea was we would have 10 or 15 kids come into our home, there were Legos on the floor. So they all wanted to play with Legos. And in the course of everyday life with them, we would teach them how to control their emotions, their impulses, work on social skills. And it kind of just blossomed from there. We didn't expect this to happen. It was just a passion of ours to help kind of the outcast kids.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: And then it just kind of grew from there.
Margie Boswell: Amazing.
Joshua Boswell: So how…? This is so fascinating to me because it's unheard of and it's beautiful. But so how long typically would you keep children in your home? Would they stay overnight? For a week? Or they just come for a couple days in a row like what? I'm just curious. What did that look like?
Kirk Martin: It depended. During the school year, we'd have them over for dinner.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: Because dinners are very grounding time.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: And as you know, there are a lot of kids in dysfunctional homes, single families. So we wanted to have kids sit around the table with us. Have discussions. On the weekends, I come home… At the time I was working a regular full-time job. So we would have kids over all day Saturday. In the summer it was week long and sometimes overnight, depending on the kids. And you know it was weird after a while we had kids from Norway. Parents flying their kids in from all over the country to come to this. Because we weren't trying to fix the kids.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: We weren’t saying there's something wrong with you. We're saying, you just need some tools.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: Strong-willed, you've got a lot of emotions, you're an intense kid. That's gonna serve you well in life.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: You're gonna give you some tools so when things don't go your way, you can handle it. And so yeah,… we had no idea. I put a six dollar ad in a local newspaper that said ADHD camps. Build confidence and social skills. And my wife was like, Nobody's gonna come to your camp. And then we got all these calls, and I was like, I have to develop a curriculum.
Joshua Boswell: You're like, OH, I better do something about this.
Kirk Martin: Yes, there are six kids coming over on Saturday. What are we going to do? But I think it's the best thing because then you're relying on God's wisdom rather than this well thought out plan.
Joshua Boswell: Totally.
Kirk Martin: And it was like, Uh, God? In three days, there are a bunch of kids coming to our house. What do we do? And it was so beautiful because it was kind of organically done in that way.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: Yeah, but I did that a long time ago. I'm way too old to have 15 kids running around. I have no idea how you guys still… You are artificial intelligence generated humans.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah, this is all just AI generated. So it's just fine airbrushed on the internet as I say. So funny.
Kirk Martin: Yeah.
Margie Boswell: That's amazing. Was Casey in with the group? Was it all about his same age? or..
Kirk Martin: Casey… I will forever be grateful. He had weird kids show up at his house, run up to the bedroom to wake him up because they all liked him, right? He was usually like the older kid.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah!
Kirk Martin: And they’re like, Casey, are you coming down to play? He's like, I'm trying to sleep. Leave me alone.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Kirk Martin: So he grew up around all of that. And because it was so much of our story, Casey, my story with him of our changed relationship, yeah, he was around for all of it. So he's kind of learned firsthand what it was like. And then honestly the kids changed me. As you know, the kids changed me more than I changed them.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: Because they knew every button to push that I had
Margie Boswell: Mm-hm.
Kirk Martin: And I couldn't sit there and yell at them or murder children coming to my house, right?
Joshua Boswell: Especially if they paid to come and get beaten? It's just bad. It’s just bad business. Yeah.
Kirk Martin: It was. So I ended up changing so much.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: And it's really gratifying… this has been, some of the kids 15-20 years ago. I still get emails. Hey, remember my child was in your Camp. They were struggling. Now they're out in the real world. They're happy. They're married. They've got kids. Like… it's really cool to see.
Joshua Boswell: So amazing. So I'm curious… and then I want to get to the one thing question. You've already kind of dabbled in it but I want to dig deeper. So in those camps, how much interaction did you have with the parents?
Kirk Martin: Well that's what ended up changing, Joshua. Because what I noticed was, I could get the kids to do anything. I was really good with the strong-willed kids.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: But when they went home, their parents were super reactive.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Kirk Martin: So we switched and said, if your kids are coming to our house, you have to come and participate. Because otherwise you're sending kids here, but if you're not changing it at home…
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: And it actually changed full course. And I said, You know what? I'm not gonna work with the kids anymore.
Joshua Boswell: right
Kirk Martin: And let's just work with the parents. Because as you know, the parents are with the kids 24 hours a day.
Joshua Boswell: Exactly.
Kirk Martin: It doesn't matter what I do for an hour.
Margie Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: Then that's when it actually really took off. Because then you've got parents doing this with all of their kids at home and then that starts to spread, so.
Margie Boswell: So awesome.
Joshua Boswell: So powerful. When I was in high school, one of my ways I paid my way through high school was as a swim teacher. I taught little kids swim lessons. And what's amazing is, if the parents weren't there?
Kirk Martin: We're fine!
Joshua Boswell: I get those kids to do anything. It was awesome. They learned how to swim and it was great. They listened to me. And then the parents showed up and they knew all the buttons to push with the parents and then it was all… so I set a rule. It's like, two rules. If your kid’s gonna come to learn to swim with me, One is, you can't be there during lessons. Two is, I'm gonna sit down with you… I was 16, 17, 18, but I got this about parents. I'm gonna sit down with you and I'm gonna give you instructions on what to do with your kid after we're done with lessons. Because you're gonna mess it all up when we're all done, and the kid’s gonna drown! And that's gonna be my fault! So I gave lessons for the parents and lessons for the kids.
Kirk Martin: That is awesome. That is so true. It's true.
Joshua Boswell: So much. Yes.
Kirk Martin: It's all that parental anxiety, and I want them to do well, and I'm gonna make sure. And then the child clams up. It’s like… yeah.
Joshua Boswell: So true.
Kirk Martin: That's so cool.
Joshua Boswell: So I love that you switched gears. I mean, I think it's amazing. And I'm just… on a side note, the question of you have to change, and God made this child for a purpose? Here's what I'm seeing is… I'm seeing God had this amazing plan to influence a million families by putting a handful of… a big handful, but a handful of strong-willed kids in your life to discipline you to change so you can teach these parents so that they can help their families. It's an amazing thing the way God works! It’s awesome.
Kirk Martin: Yeah. We didn't see it at the time.
Margie Boswell: No.
Kirk Martin: But even on a more granular level, my son was a gift to me. Because if we had an easy, compliant kid who just did what we said all the time, I could have just been immature. Right? I could’ve just said, hey, go do this. Right?
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Kirk Martin: But it falls… You know, it's the same thing with marriage. You either grow up or you grow apart.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: If there’s… there's not going to be, but if there's a 36 year old guy watching this who doesn't have kids, he plays video games on Saturday morning.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Kirk Martin: But when you get married and it's like… Because marriage is the union of two irritating, selfish people.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Kirk Martin: So, how are we gonna navigate that? And then you recreate other irritating selfish people? Now your home’s filled with… you've got four of you, each of you with different agendas. And so it causes you to grow up. And for me that's the transformation, right? It's the same thing of our union with Christ. In the end, it's not really about our behavior. It’s that that relationship transforms us. We become different people.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah. Yeah.
Kirk Martin: And so if you can lean into that as a parent and instead of, “Why do these kids do this?!” It's like, well it’s in the job description! Right? The job description of a toddler is to make messes, explore, and just get in trouble. Like that's their job description.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Kirk Martin: And then your job description is to not freak out when they do that.
Joshua Boswell: Right, and give them a safe place to do it. Super cool. So talk with us a little bit more about this transformation. Because you said… and maybe you want to restate or tell us again, but you know, having this idea that we can change ourselves and we can't fix everybody else. Talk to us a little bit about that. And then, what does that journey look like? I mean, you've taught a lot of parents this, so you give us some ideas about what that journey looks like and some practical steps we can take.
Kirk Martin: So I'll give you a couple. I think first is just recognizing that truth. There's only one person in life that I can truly control.
Joshua Boswell: yeah.
Kirk Martin: It's my own emotions, my behavior, my words. And just absorbing that for a couple days, right? You know, it’s like if you’re a parent, especially as a young parent, it's, Well I've got to be on this kid. I've got to train him. I've got to teach him. I've got to correct him all the time. And instead when you start to step back and say, Okay. I'm going to change myself. So here are a couple things I started with. Changing body posture.
Joshua Boswell: Hmm.
Kirk Martin: So my body posture used to be to walk into the room, stand up, puff out the chest. You're gonna do this, young man. We'll just provoke the defensive response.
Joshua Boswell: Right!
Kirk Martin: A really weird one that's really effective when things are escalating in the home, whether it's a 5 year old or 12 year old. For anybody who's listening, just try it. It’ll sound kind of dumb, but do it. Just literally sit in a chair… Or let's say two siblings are squabbling in the living room.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: Natural impulse? You know what, I buy these guys all these toys, all these video games. You can't even play well for 20 minutes. You go to your room, you go to your room.
Joshua Boswell: right
Kirk Martin: What did I do? I just got them to be quiet, which was kind of my goal, but I didn't teach them anything.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: If I were to walk into that living room and… say lie down in the middle of the living room floor. Here's what would happen. The two kids are gonna look at you like, What are you doing? Because it’s bizarre. Like, Mom, we've never actually seen you sit, right?
Joshua Boswell: Right. Yeah.
Kirk Martin: Like, Moms don’t sit. And you're laying on the floor and they will stop and they'll look at you like, what are you doing? And now you get to teach. Hey guys… And I'm gonna use you two as an example. I’ll use you, Joshua, as the strong-willed, irritating child.
Joshua Boswell: You nailed it. Perfect.
Kirk Martin: But now I can speak and say, guys I've seen this situation in our home developed 68 times. Joshua, I know what you're doing. You've got this amazing brain. It needs to be stimulated. You have all these ideas and you've got a lot of energy, but when you get bored, you hate being bored because your brain shuts down. So you pick on your sister. But when you pick on your sister, you get in trouble, you lose all your stuff, and you're now dependent on your sister. You need her to react to you in order to feed your brain.
Joshua Boswell: Mm-hmm
Kirk Martin: That's not gonna work for you. But I've got an idea. If you want to come with me to the kitchen and help me fix lunch, I bet we could brainstorm three different ways for you to use that brain of yours to make some money in the neighborhood. Because you are born an entrepreneur. And so in that case, instead of saying stop it, I just taught him. This is why you're poking your sister. To get the reaction.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Kirk Martin: But it's not gonna work for you because you're just getting trouble.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: But here's an alternative because I love how your brain works. You want to start a little business because you can either spend your whole childhood irritating your sister and losing all your things, or we start a little business my friend and you could do really well.
Joshua Boswell: Totally.
Kirk Martin: And I started that not by changing their behavior… And then I can talk to the sister who keeps reacting and say, hey stop reacting to your brother because you're giving him power over you.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Kirk Martin: And every daughter's going to be like, he does have power over me. And I’m like yeah he does. Because he looked at you and you reacted.
Joshua Boswell: Freaked out. Yeah.
Kirk Martin: And I only noticed that because when he rolls his eyes at me, I react, right?
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Kirk Martin: The seven year old is controlling the whole home.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: But I change… Can I do one more example?
Joshua Boswell: Yes, please.
Margie Boswell: Yeah, great.
Kirk Martin: So when Casey was about 11 or12, he started coming into the room with some attitude with that tone.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: And you have every right to say, young man, you are not to talk to me like that. You are not going to use that in this home. And the strong willed child, or at least ours, said, just did. Right? Like he went right after it.
Joshua Boswell: Right after it. Yeah.
Kirk Martin: And so then you think, well if you're gonna be disrespectful, you're not going to... You're not going to your friend's house tonight, all your video games lost. We're done. And then it begins to escalate right?
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: Because as soon as you jump into that, you escalate. So what I did one day was I actually stepped backwards.
Joshua Boswell: Hmm.
Kirk Martin: And I said… and we're big into using even, matter of fact tone. I can control my tone.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: Because I don't like the “If you keep that up!!” because as soon as you start getting upset, your child knows.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Kirk Martin: They're like, look, all I need to do is do that a couple more times and then Dad’s gonna lose it.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: Then dad starts stomping around the house. Dad’s out of control and the kid’s in control. And when a parent goes too sweet… You've heard this in our generation now, where the younger generation… they're being way too sweet with the kids.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: Oh honey, you shouldn't talk to Mommy like that. And the child doesn't respect that. It sounds way too weak.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: So right in between is, so I step back and I said, Hey Casey. Listen. Now I go into teacher mode. The last 43 times I heard you use that tone, it was because you are anxious, frustrated, or hungry. Because those were his three triggers. Two options now. You may continue to talk to me like that, if you want. Because he can.
Joshua Boswell: Sure.
Kirk Martin: You can duct tape them, but then they'll do other things to you.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Kirk Martin: So you may… but you're just gonna lose all your stuff. Right?
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: My “no” doesn't have a lot of energy. It's just like the assumed clip. You know it’s not gonna work.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Kirk Martin: Not a lot of energy. No drama. I can't believe, when I was a kid, I didn't talk to… none of that. It's not gonna work. But if you want to grab some chips, I'll grab some salsa. I'll meet you out on the deck. I'll help you with whatever you're struggling with.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: So the idea is… one of our phrases is, motion changes emotion. He comes into the room all emotional and full of himself. Instead of me feeding that, I step back and say hey, that's not gonna work. Something else is going on. I'm here to problem solve with you.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: And I think that’s what God does, right? When we go before God and we're like, God, I don't know what to do. He doesn't say, You know what, if you would have more faith, you wouldn’t… Right? He doesn’t guilt us.
Joshua Boswell: Right, right.
Kirk Martin: Hey, I can tell you're messed up right now. You're not thinking clearly, let's go for a walk and talk.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: I'll give you some clarity and I'll problem solve with you. So that gave us… and there's a million different ways of… You know, I had this great dad, his daughter really likes to draw. And whenever she was getting amped up, he would come in the room, and this is so beautiful. He'd say, hey honey, I'm kind of in the mood to draw. So I'm gonna grab some pencils and paper and go downstairs. When you're ready, will you grab a water for me and come downstairs and join me?
Joshua Boswell: Mm-hmm
Kirk Martin: Just invited her. So rather than, Go to your room until you can learn to talk respectfully to your parents! Because now we get into, when I'm upset, I send you away from me.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah, right. Mm-hmm.
Kirk Martin: And you know how that works with faith stuff. Kids start to, Oh, God's mad, He sends me away.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: And this Dad, instead of coming into the room, You're not gonna talk to your mother like that! He knew something else was going on, and he led her.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: So hey, I'm gonna go do something I know you like. When you're ready. Great phrase when kids are upset. Because I'm sure out of your 83 children, you have a few strong-willed kids. And if you say, You're gonna stop that right now! That gets an instant, No. Right?
Joshua Boswell: Oh yeah, that's like tipping a nuclear bomb.
Margie Boswell: Detonate right now. Yes.
Kirk Martin: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: It's like, let’s just detonate the nuclear bomb. Boom.
Kirk Martin: So when I say, When you're ready, I'm giving my daughter ownership. And I said hey, I'm going to be in the basement drawing. And then could you grab me a water?
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: I just gave her something she's in control of.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: And I guarantee you, in most situations, a minute or two later that daughter's going to walk downstairs. And now while they're coloring, there's no eye contact. It's not having a deep family meeting about your behavior, young lady. Because that creates defensiveness.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Kirk Martin: We're both drawing. Casey and I are having chips and salsa. I'm building with Legos. Now I can say, Hey, I know that you know that what you just said to your mom was wrong. I know you know that's wrong.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: But I'm curious about… And I love that phrase, I'm curious. I'm curious what was going on that would lead you to be yelling at your mom or to talk like that? What's going on? Now I can get to the root and find out. Oh, they're frustrated, disappointed, something happened with a friend. Now I can teach them the most important lesson, in some ways, which is, how are you going to deal with frustration and disappointment in life?
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: It’s gonna happen thousands of times in your life. When I send them to the room, all I tell them is it's wrong to do what you are doing. But they already know it's wrong.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: What they need is, Let me show you how to handle that differently next time. And we're together. So I don't know if that makes sense, but I…
Joshua Boswell: No, it does make sense!
Margie Boswell: Beautiful.
Joshua Boswell: I love a couple things about this, Kirk. One is that you're in that teaching mode. You’re also in the invitation mode. Because if they don't voluntarily step into a situation or a new set of behavior or thinking or whatever… You're not gonna force it onto them. Again, you can't change them. Like you said, you can change you. And you're just inviting them to take action to move forward in a different direction. I love, love, love that approach. The other thing that I love is that… You know, you said a couple times, but the brother is dependent on the sister for the reaction. Right? And so if you take the sister out, they all grow up, they've learned the dependency, they grow up. So now, in order for him to get what he thinks he wants out of life, he's got to find something to hit to get a reaction out of.
Kirk Martin: Hmm.
Joshua Boswell: And so is this drugs? Is this robbery? Is this cheating in business? Like, where can he hit something, metaphorically, to get a response.
Margie Boswell: Or irritate his wife.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah, or whatever.
Margie Boswell: Looking into the future.
Joshua Boswell: He's hard coded. I would never do that.
Margie Boswell: No, you would never do that!
Kirk Martin: Right imagine that. Irritate his wife.
Joshua Boswell: I just noticed that's the first thing you thought of. That’s good. So I love that you’re… instead of engendering in them this response of, Oh, to get what I want in life, I've got to hit something, poke something, prod something, get a reaction out of something. I actually can work through this and do something constructive, like build a business.
Margie Boswell: Mmm-hmm.
Kirk Martin: Right.
Joshua Boswell: Or like, serve somebody else. Or pray to God and get direction. Or whatever it is that the resolution there needs to be. Very powerful.
Margie Boswell: So powerful.
Kirk Martin: Do you mind if I share something along those lines?
Joshua Boswell: Yeah, I'd love to hear it.
Kirk Martin: Okay. So you get a lot of kids on the spectrum who have brains that are physiologically under-stimulated. They don't get enough dopamine. Not enough blood flow. So they're always looking for, in your words, that hit. That kind of dopamine hit. Well, one of the easiest ways to do it is just to irritate my parents. Right?
Joshua Boswell: right
Kirk Martin: Think how easy! My mom tells me to do something, I roll my eyes. Mom responds with, young lady. You will not roll your eyes at me. I never did that to my mother. Then dad hears mom and daughter getting upset. Dad gets a little bit afraid because, men, we don't know what to do with other people's emotions, right?
Joshua Boswell: Right!
Kirk Martin: So we're like… we know what to do, honey, when everything's okay, but when you're upset, freaks us out. So dad comes in and starts yelling at the daughter. And then that's usually when Mom starts sticking up for the daughter. And a little kid learned by moving two eye muscles, I control the behavior of the two adults in the home.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: So what they're after is intensity. I'll hit on this because I'm sure you have a lot of people watching who have adopted kids, kids from the foster care system.
Joshua Boswell: Yep.
Kirk Martin: So this is really important for these kinds of kids. Not just those kids but ADD kids, all those kids. They want intensity. And so human nature says, you get your needs met usually the easiest way possible. So, if all I have to do is poke my sister, roll my eyes at my dad, and I get intensity, well I'm just gonna keep doing that.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Kirk Martin: So I want to start shifting to give kids positive intensity proactively. Let me give you an example in a situation. So this is very common with our kids. Let’s say a nine year old boy comes home from school. He makes a paper airplane. He throws the paper airplane. It doesn't fly the way he wants. So he's going to go grab it, crumple it up. I’m sure you have one of these kids. Crumple. Stupid airplane! This is the dumbest airplane. I’m dumb. And every good mom and dad will come into the room. Oh honey. That was a really good airplane. And the child's like, Duh! If it was a good airplane, it would have flown right.
Joshua Boswell: Exactly!
Kirk Martin: That we just did to our kids what husbands usually do to their wives, which is, I'm uncomfortable with your emotions. It's okay, honey. You're just overreacting. Right? Which is what every dumb husband has said to his wife.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: Because what we should say is, Honey, I'm really immature. I don't know how to handle your emotions. And so I dismiss them and act like they don't exist. So instead, if I were to come into that situation with that child who just threw his airplane, I'd come and say, You know what? If I were you, I'd be frustrated too.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: You spent a lot of time trying to make that airplane. You had a vision of how it was supposed to be, and it didn't fly right. That's frustrating. Now I'll stop there for a second. That validation is really calming. Because there's nothing worse… Has anybody ever told you what you just need to calm down.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Kirk Martin: That is irritating! So when I validate… and I love this phrase, Of course. Of course you're frustrated right now, right? When your teenagers come and they want to get Snapchat, right? And you're a good, responsible parent. You're like, No. And they get upset and do their little tantrums, my response is of course you're upset at me. All your friends have it, and you want it. Your job as a teenager is to try to get everything you possibly can that your friends have. My job as a parent is to prevent you from making decisions in the moment that will ruin the rest of your life.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Kirk Martin: Right? So you take a little bit of that tension out of it, of like, Oh… this is the way it's supposed to work. Your job, toddler, is to get into stuff.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: It's to be curious. A four year old is not supposed to be like, okay, what's the list today? A four year old is not supposed to be productive and efficient. And so… right? We’ve got the rest of our lives. But sometimes as young parents we’re like, yeah, but I need to teach them from a young age! Yes, teach them. But chill. They're supposed to make messes.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: And so when you normalize a little bit of it, it takes the pressure off of you. I can't believe that my teenager is talking! No, it would be weird if your teenager said Mom Dad, you know what? I think we have too much stuff. I think you give us too much time. It's not good for us to have all this time. Please take it away. That would be weird. You'd be like you guys are up to something.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Kirk Martin: So when I came in and said, Hey, I'd be frustrated too.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: Now you normalized it. Now space. Hey, you know what? I need to go to the bathroom. I'm gonna go get something to drink. When I come back, let's problem solve and figure out how to fix this.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: Giving strong-willed or upset kids space in the moment? Really important.
Joshua Boswell: Hmm.
Kirk Martin: Because nobody likes to be watched when they're melting down.
Joshua Boswell: Right!
Kirk Martin: Right because it's like… you're gonna change that attitude. And I'm gonna stand here until you change your mood. Well not when he's watching at me, but when I stepped away for a minute, it gave them space to wrestle with, Ahh this airplane! It’s frustrating! Why did I do that? When you come back, your tone is fresh, your eyes are fresh, and you're much more likely to lead them and for them to follow you. I’ll do an example, a quick one. Mom and daughter in a horse barn. Because the daughter likes to ride horses, because she's not great with people but they're often awesome with animals.
Joshua Boswell: Yes.
Kirk Martin: And so she's trying to put her riding boots on, but the kids we work with are really particular about little things. And this day the boots aren't fitting right. So the daughter's throwing her boots down. Stupid boots. And every mom's gonna say, if you're not gonna treat your boots with respect, you're never gonna ride a horse again, right? And then it escalates.
Joshua Boswell: It escalates, yeah.
Kirk Martin: And we all do that. So moms and dads, no blaming guilt. We all do those things.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Kirk Martin: But what if Mom just faked and said, Oh, honey. Listen, I'm getting a call. Stepped out of that Barn for a minute. Gave her daughter a minute to wrestle with those boots alone without being watched. It's your swim example.
Joshua Boswell: Exactly!
Kirk Martin: Right? The kids fail without their parents there watching and commenting.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: Honey, do the backstroke a little bit better. You need to keep your head down. Hold your nose up.
Joshua Boswell: Exactly. Yeah.
Kirk Martin: And then it’s like… leave me alone! So the space, the intensity of validation. And if I can make one more point why this is important with adopted kids.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: They miss that connection, a lot of them, when they were babies.
Joshua Boswell: Oh yeah. Mm-hm.
Kirk Martin: What happens is, they associate intensity with connection. They don't distinguish between negative and positive.
Joshua Boswell: Right. It’s just intensity.
Margie Boswell: Mm-hmm.
Joshua Boswell: They just want the intensity. Yeah.
Kirk Martin: So if they can just do something wrong and dad comes in. You know what?! You’re not gonna do that! That fed that kid. Because here's what he knows. At least someone's yelling at me. That means they care.
Margie Boswell: Awww.
Kirk Martin: So I want to switch that around, and every time they do make a good choice, I'm coming. Joshua, good choice my friend. Fist bump.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: And then walk away. Not a lot of time on it, but just, you know what? That was a good choice. I heard your sister provoking you, you walked away? Dude, that tells me you're growing up. Well done.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: Then that starts to feed their brain of, Oh, that's the intensity that I want from my parents. It's a really cool thing that you can do.
Joshua Boswell: Amazing. One of the things I just want to highlight here. And I think you've done it very intentionally… if not, like Bravo. It's just an amazing process. But your normalization or calling out truth the way things really are in these situations. It's like sitting down, you gave a couple examples of, Hey, the last 37 times that you've done this you were hungry or stressed or whatever. And you're just acknowledging that. You're identifying it. And I think that that process is really cool. Because so many times there's a lot of shame and guilt and frustration. And it's like, Oh, if I admit that my kid’s frustrated over a silly little airplane, I must be a bad parent and they must have something wrong with them.
Kirk Martin: Mmmm.
Joshua Boswell: And just being like, Oh, well yeah, I’d be frustrated too ‘cause… you know. The paper airplane didn’t work, and you spent time on it. It’s like… OHHH. And I think about the scripture where Christ says the truth will set you free. And really what you're doing is you're identifying things as they really are, not fake society, not false expectations, but just this is where it really is. And all of a sudden it frees up everybody to be like, Oh yeah. Okay.
Kirk Martin: That's good.
Joshua Boswell: It's so powerful what you're doing there, Kirk. It really is amazing.
Kirk Martin: I think it's important… And appreciate you calling that out. Especially for a lot of Christian and faith-based parents, right? Because we're like, if we just pray enough, everything's going to be okay.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Kirk Martin: But I’m like, look, God's kids… I always bring back the first two kids, Cain and Abel. One of the two kids was a murderer.
Joshua Boswell: Right!
Kirk Martin: So if you have a better than 50% murder rate among your kids, historically speaking, you're a good mom. Right?
Joshua Boswell: Yeah. Yeah. Right
Kirk Martin: It's like… And then there's Joseph and his brothers! And sometimes in faith circles, we create this thing of like… Oh yeah… No. It's not supposed to be perfect.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: And it's not that you're doing anything wrong. This is just human nature since the beginning of time. And I love especially the part… The kids we work with grow up with a lot of shame.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: And the reason kids often lie… and this freaks Christian parents out more than anything. Our child doesn't have integrity! I was like, it's not an Integrity issue.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: You have a strong-willed, impulsive child who did something wrong, he knows it was wrong. He's lying because he doesn't want the consequence, because he's ashamed of always being in trouble.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Kirk Martin: So the lying is just what a smart kid does. Right? It's not right.
Joshua Boswell: No, right! I totally understand.
Kirk Martin: But the lie isn’t the issue. It's the impulse control in the first place, and now he's just covering. Which is again, the first human, Adam, who ate from that tree. That woman that you gave me…
Joshua Boswell: Right!
Kirk Martin: He blamed God! If you read that, it is awesome because he doesn’t just blame the woman. He blames God. The woman that you gave me. So he throws God and Eve under the bus.
Joshua Boswell: Right! Totally.
Kirk Martin: And that's the first human. Before everything bad happened. It's so I like taking the shame out and saying, of course you're upset. Why would you not? Like with anxiety. Of course, you're anxious.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: You're going to a new place. You don't know anybody there. You don't know what to expect. If your stomach isn't a little bit anxious, something's probably wrong with you. You're... and then that takes it out of, Well, I don’t want to go because I'm anxious.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Kirk Martin: Well of course you're anxious. I get anxious. I got anxious before I got on this podcast. But no one’s going to ask me, right? I'm 57 and I get anxious. It helps everybody breathe a little bit. So I appreciate you calling that out. It's really good.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah. Well, it's such a powerful thing. And the other thing that stood out to me as we visited is that… And I mentioned it before, but that invitation process. And giving them the option to buy into making some changes. And identifying that, Oh, they actually have ownership of themselves. And just like the key thing you can do is to transform yourself, the key thing they can do is to turn to God and transform themselves. They don't get control over you. And I think that's what you're saying. The child learning that rolling eyes can spark the intensity from the two parents?
Kirk Martin: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: They're learning, oh, I actually can control other people. And it's not a great signal to send.
Kirk Martin: NO!
Joshua Boswell: Right? And like you said, we sometimes… those people roll into being parents themselves, and they’re like, Oh, I controlled mom and dad, I can control my kid. And then wow, sparks start flying, because then he gets rough.
Kirk Martin: Right. Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: So powerful. So I think we've got time if you've got one more cool tip or trick or insight for us and with some examples. I think that we've got time for one more piece of wisdom from you, Kirk.
Kirk Martin: Let me do one for younger people. This isn't anything deep, but it just hit me. So hopefully it helps someone. You know when you're young… And you guys, you're still young parents. But when you were first parents of your first kids, it's like you get so… it's a lot of “No.” Stop that. Put that down. Instead of always saying, “No,” whenever you say no to something inappropriate, I always like to say yes to something appropriate.
Joshua Boswell: Oh, wow.
Kirk Martin: So my seven year old is jumping on the sofa, right? You have every right as a parent to walk in and say, Get off the sofa! There’s springs on the sofa! Or we do the sweet mommy one. Honey, we don't jump on the sofa. There are springs.
Kirk Martin: And the child's like, maybe we don't, but I am!
Joshua Boswell: Yeah!
Kirk Martin: And by the way, this is really key for today's parents. You can't explain things to them or convince them. Stop… your kids are never going to say, Mom, Dad. I really wanted to do it my own way. But after you lectured me… You guys have so much wisdom. I just want to do it your way.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah…
Kirk Martin: You're like… You convince them by lead. So when I walk in the room, it's short and sweet. Hey, jumping on a sofa, not happening in my home. But I love your energy. If you want to come help me stir the soup, or if you want to come help me walk the dog, I could really use your help.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: So the no is quick and easy. There's not a long drama. We don't have to talk about the sofa. Uh-uh. It’s not happening in my home.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: And then the transition, I lead a lot with my voice.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: Hey, but that energy? Man… I love that. Now do I really like their energy? No, because they're exhausting. But I want to use that. Here's no to the sofa, but here are three things…
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: Hey, there's some mulch in the backyard. Man, if you want to shovel some mulch. I had a lot of kids who love doing physical work.
Joshua Boswell: Oh yeah.
Kirk Martin: And I can see you guys have property out there. I'm sure I'm surprised there's not like a kid running back there doing something. One of your 40 kids.
Joshua Boswell: There normally would be to be honest with you!
Kirk Martin: That would be pretty awesome if they ran right now.
Joshua Boswell: We have the podcast flag up, so they're like, Okay…
Margie Boswell: Can’t do it right now.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah, they walk through many, many, many videos.
Kirk Martin: But if I'm ever on again, I want to plant a kid in the backyard, doing physical work is actually really good for a lot of these kids. It's a sensory thing. So anyway, I've talked too much. But I appreciate the really good questions and I appreciate you calling out the right stuff.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah, well…
Margie Boswell: I wish we could go on for another couple hours! This is great. We have really learned a lot and I think our listeners also are really gonna appreciate what you've shared with us.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah, super cool.
Margie Boswell: I’m replaying things in my mind that I want to go and do with my kids now.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah, and again that process of my old Anthony Robbins, he talks a lot about pattern interrupts. And it's like, hey, that's not happening. And if you want to come and stir stuff, we can talk about how to solve this. You know it's just like… Or laying down in the middle of the floor. It's doing things in a way that it's not escalating the situation, but it's being the parents still. It's guiding and leading and loving and helping them. But I think starting off with this whole thing, you talked about how WE have to make the changes, right?
Kirk Martin: Right.
Joshua Boswell: We're not doing these things to compel them to change, but we get to change ourselves. And one other thing I just wanted to point out that stuck out to me so powerfully when you were talking about Adam and Eve. It's fascinating to me that as Christians, oftentimes we have this pressure to have perfect families, right? It's, Oh… I'm a Believer and, if I was a great person, then my kids would be great and they would just be excellent in everything and perfect.
Margie Boswell: Make me look good.
Joshua Boswell: Make me look good and all that good stuff. But the fascinating thing about it is that the very fact that God knew every single one of his kids would jump on the couch, poke their sister, you know… come in with attitude to mom and dad. Like the very fact of that is why the whole plan exists and why Christ came and did what He did. It's like He gets it. Like… you're gonna make mistakes. You're gonna be a wreck, you're gonna be selfish, you're gonna do this stuff. So we’ve got a plan to solve this. And I think that sometimes we forget that as parents. We’re like… Oh well yeah, that helped me repent and to fix myself, but my kid’s gonna be perfect.
Kirk Martin: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: And we put this weird stress on ourselves and I love how you just disband that. Like, actually no. Yeah.
Kirk Martin: It just takes the pressure off of moms, dads and kids, right, to be this perfect thing. And you flow and then like you said, that's the invitation thing. You bond over things that irritate you. Casey and I, my son, those are our memories of the things that irritated me most, my goal became to deal with my own triggers, and then bond over that.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: And those are the things that kind of stick. Like even in your marriage, the things that are hardest, when you work through it? Now you're super tight with those.
Joshua Boswell: Totally. Yeah.
Kirk Martin: So I appreciate what you're doing. I appreciate parents. This is so hard. I always tell Dads, your job is easy. Dealing with an emotional kid, it’ll be the hardest thing you ever do.
Joshua Boswell: So true.
Kirk Martin: It really is.
Margie Boswell: That’s right.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Margie Boswell: So Kirk,…what is the best way for people that are listening to this to come and…find out more and… learn more from all your amazing wisdom?
Kirk Martin: So we've got… The easiest way, we have a podcast called the Calm Parenting Podcast.
Margie Boswell: Mm-hmm.
Kirk Martin: The company organization is Celebrate Calm, which is a horrible name. It sounds like a yoga place or something. It's a terrible name. But if you look up the Calm Parenting Podcast, or my name, you'll find it. And the podcast is a really good place to start because we have 350 episodes on stuff for little kids, for teens, different topics.
Margie Boswell: Amazing.
Kirk Martin: And on there, on the website, anybody can reach out to us. And if you do, if you heard us through here, tell us you met us through the Happy Family Club podcast, right? Because then it makes it a little bit more personal.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Kirk Martin: Well we exist to help people. It's what we do, so we're happy to answer questions.
Joshua Boswell: That's awesome.
Margie Boswell: That's great.
Joshua Boswell: I'm gonna send you an email tonight. It’s good.
Kirk Martin: And I’ll say, Listen to Margie.
Joshua Boswell: I like your wisdom! Kirk, thank you again. This has been fun, it’s been so enlightening and so rewarding. We just really appreciate it. And maybe sometime we can convince you to come on for another episode and share a few more of your wisdom because it's just been great. We really appreciate your time. So…
Kirk Martin: Only if you have at least one of your kids running the background.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah, we can arrange like 13 or 14. Yeah, we got it.
Kirk Martin: Yeah that would be perfect. Like regular family life. Like that's have some kids come in and start yelling at you and live on camera. That would be awesome.
Joshua Boswell: Awesome yeah. I like that.
Margie Boswell: Perfect!
Kirk Martin: Thank you guys very much.
Joshua Boswell: Thank you so much! Take care.
Margie Boswell: Have a great day.
Kirk Martin: Okay. Bye.