Sol (00:01)
Welcome to Coparenting Beyond Conflict. I'm your guest host, Louise Love, partner to Sol, who created the BestInterest app for co-parents. At BestInterest and on this podcast, our goal is to help you find peace in the storm. I'm guest hosting this episode today because I'm a huge fan of Kirk Martin, host of the Calm Parenting podcast. Kirk has helped nearly a million parents stop power struggles with their kids using practical, compassionate strategies. Much of his advice has helped Sol and I come to a deeper understanding with his two kids.

I'm excited for this conversation because so much of our kids' behavior is a direct reflection of the conflict between their parents. If you're exhausted from the constant battles, worried about your kids and just want to know how to be the calm anchor in their lives, then this episode is for you. Let's dive in.

Louise (00:42)
Welcome to the podcast, Kirk. It's so nice to have you. How are you doing today?

Kirk (00:45)
It is awesome to be here. I'm so excited.

Louise (00:47)
I've been listening to the Calm Parenting podcast for quite a while now. I just want to give a brief intro to our listeners about your podcast, the origin story. I know you have a son named Casey, who's a grown adult now, and that's about it. How did you come to be Mr. Calm?

Kirk (01:07)
I was not born that way. I was not raised that way. My dad was career military, so it was kind of "my way or the highway" approach. And then Casey came along. We always joke like Casey came out of the womb with boxing gloves on, like ready to fight. And I thought, "I'll put that down like my dad did with us." And the strong-willed child was like, ⁓ "I'll bring it much harder than you can." And it just didn't work. I eventually learned my job is not to control my son.

It's not to control anybody else's behavior except my own, which to be my weak spot, which is, I was a grown man who couldn't control my emotions. And me on this path. We ended up opening up our home to really strong-willed kids. And there's no great definition, but there are these kids who just want their own way. Consequences don't matter to them, which makes it awesome. It's really hard to parent, but they're really bright kids.

We wanted to open up our home so we could teach them in the moment, how do you deal with frustration? How do you deal with disappointment? Things aren't going to go your way. Your friend's going to say something mean to you. We did that for about 10 years. We traveled a lot. And then we were like, let's do a podcast. And I love doing the podcast. It's a ton of fun. I get to answer people's questions. And what we try to do is give very, very practical strategies for the toughest situations with the toughest kids.

Louise (02:23)
I'm curious if there was a moment in that history where it was a big wake up call for you, or a defining moment of you coming to terms with this notion that the conventional kind of disciplinary model that you were taught was just not going to fly anymore for your kid and for the kids that you were working with.

Kirk (02:44)
It was over time I was a good dad, engaged dad. I spent time with Casey, but time we did something it ended up in a fight, with me being disappointed yelling at him and always shaking my head "why can't you do this?" and I noticed he started withdrawing from me. I remember I went to my wife and I was like "what's up with Casey? He doesn't want to be with me" and she looked at me and said "would you want to be with you?"

I was like, "but I'm a good dad." And she's like, "you are, but you can't control yourself and your anxiety dumps all over him." The big, big moment was this scene in our kitchen where I'm in the living room like old Archie Bunker. I hear my wife ask Casey "Hey, you need to take out the trash" and Casey's like, "I'll get it in a few minutes, mom."

And in my world, you didn't talk back to your parents. There is always "yes, ma'am. Yes, sir. Right away." So I was like "Case"- from the other room, of course, "you need to take out the trash." And he was like, "Dad, I'm working on something." "No, you do it." And you can hear that right in the voice it gradually gets like, "no, you're going to do that." always escalated situations. The long story short is I went in, I escalated it. He ran up to his room crying.

And then I looked at what he was working on and it was a school project and he was writing an assignment that his teacher had given him. The teacher said, you have to write about your favorite superhero. Casey's words on the page were, "I'm not writing about a superhero because they're not real. My superhero is my dad." Here I am crushing his spirit. And so it was

an awful and beautiful moment at the same time.

Louise (04:18)
Yeah, I can imagine that on the one hand, there were so many things that made you the "good dad" that you knew you were and then to have your partner call you out and say, you have some room for growth here, just coming to terms with the fact that there's always something more we could be doing to improve as parents, as leaders of a family.

Kirk (04:38)
I've learned as I've gotten older, just humility. Just be humble in those situations because I'm older, I'm still learning. I'm still finding my blind spots. I'm still finding my triggers. And so the humility is great for a couple of reasons. One, it just leads to growth. You end up changing. It's really good for relationships.

And it's really good with your kids, calming them down because you've probably noticed this, little changes in tone of your voice can set your kids off. But when I come into a room with humility and it's hard because you're like "no I'm the authority figure. He should be the one apologizing. My son should be the one changing here. Why am I doing it?" Another famous scene is when he

yelled at me, ran upstairs, and then I went up to yell at him and I tripped on some Legos that he had left in the middle of the floor, which again made me angry. But I grabbed them and I went up to his room and I walked in and I sat on the floor and I started building with Legos. There's this war inside of you, like my dad would have never done this. Am I being too soft on this kid? Shouldn't I be yelling at him like in the doorway? And here I am sitting below him on the floor,

playing with Legos. I remember that night because I felt him inching toward the edge of his bed. And that was humility on his part. I'm coming closer to this man who I know loves me, but it's confusing because he also yells at me. But I was on the floor and he got down on the floor and now we're building with Legos. There's no eye contact. There's no words right now.

We just start building and connecting and talking about what do we want to build. After he was calmed down, I was calm, then he apologized. He's like, "dad, I shouldn't have said that to you." And then I was like, "darn right you shouldn't." I'm just kidding. I get it. But I wanted to, right? I always want people to know like being calm doesn't mean you're like Gandhi or I don't feel things anymore. I'm just love and light. No, I'm not love and light.

I'm really intense. I just know that intensity in the wrong moments hurts people in relationships. So in that moment, I got the apology, but I didn't demand the apology. I led him to contrition with my own humility. It's really powerful how it works.

Louise (06:53)
Yeah, something else that came up for me as you were talking was this notion of, well, I'm going to do better than my parents and they did things like this. And so I'm going to do things the opposite. And yet this need for humility where just because we think we're doing better than our parents did, doesn't mean that's actually what's going to work for our kids. Facing the fact that

Wow, I don't know anything right now. I don't know what's best. I don't know what's right for the kid in front of me.

Kirk (07:18)
And for some

of us, we have a pretty low bar. It wasn't hard to be better than my dad. I know as a man, I'm like, "yeah, well, at least I'm not hitting him." Good first step, but we can go further. I think the greatest gift I've given my son is to break the generational pattern that I got from my dad. And to their credit, I have three brothers

Louise (07:22)
totally.

Kirk (07:39)
we're all pretty decent dads, pretty decent husbands. So we broke that pattern. Our kids aren't going to have the anger issues, most likely that we had, that my dad had. I have an enormous amount of respect for parents, especially the young parents, millennial parents, millennials get a bad rap. They're working really on emotional stuff that my generation didn't until we were older,

or lost our family, right? That happens. That's a great gift to say, okay, I'm going to break that generational pattern.

Louise (08:09)
Yeah, and that brings me to the crux of what I wanted to talk to you about.

A lot of divorces are the result of maybe two wounded people or two people with their backgrounds and their history and conditioning coming into a relationship, one or both of them realizing this is not ideal, and going their separate ways potentially with one more than the other on a fast track to healing, growth.

Trying to break those patterns. And maybe the other one's saying, there's nothing wrong with me, I'm fine. And this leads to this experience that a lot of kids have who live in two homes where

they're getting different downloads about, my parents are the way they are. And that's just the reality. I or one parent is the way they are. That's the reality I'm swimming in. And then over here, there's a parent who's on the growth path. Could be leaning too much in the direction of the gentle framework or the permissive, or it could be somebody who's really trying to

have a different kind of relationship with their kids than they had, as well as potentially trying to compensate for what they see as a less than ideal co-parent. Kids are growing up in this split reality. I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that.

Kirk (09:23)
Well, maybe we will break it down into different segments. One, it's really confusing for kids. I'm just going to use this. This isn't always the case, but let's say just for ease of conversation, it is the mom who tends to be the more engaged one and the dad is immature. And I say that because I'm a It takes us longer and we dig in more

a lot and this is more common. So one bid you can make with your ex is to say, look what I'm realizing is it's really confusing for the kids because our kids now, and there's no blame in this, our kids have two different homes, two different bedrooms, two different kitchens, two different living rooms. That's hard, right? And two sets of rules. I like using analogies with men.

So the analogy is, well, what if you went into your office every day, but you had two bosses and they were giving you conflicting orders and conflicting metrics to get your bonus or your be angry and frustrated. That's what's happening with our kids. Now, I hope this doesn't offend anybody, but in this scenario, I like to throw the guy a bone because guys usually aren't as mature in this and self-aware.

He's probably not gonna listen to you because if he had listened to you, you probably wouldn't be divorced. So I get that. But what you could say is, why don't we do this? Why don't you come up with three traditions? So no matter who's home the kids come home to, there are three things that are

always the same after school, at dinner, at bedtime, or waking them up in the morning so that no matter whose house they're at, we always do the same thing. Whether you're a religious family and you say grace at dinner, or you do a certain tradition, you read a certain book at bedtime, because that consistency for the kids is extremely helpful.

That way the kids know when we get home from school, we always have a snack together outside and talk about the day. That seems reasonable. Can't guarantee that both people are going to do it, but I do like doing that.

The hard reality is you can only control what you can control. So when they're in your house, you be that firm, even matter of fact, but compassionate, empathetic parent. Be the parent you want to be in the home. You can't control the other. I think a place that people get stuck on is when kids go over to the other parent's house,

and there's a lack of order and structure. Well, then they come back and now they're all wound up and they're confused. I like to have, a re-entry tradition. I like traditions because rules tell you what not to do, traditions tell you what to do.

So the tradition on Sunday afternoon is you come back into the home, it's not gonna be like, hey, we've gotta get ready for school tomorrow, bum, bum, bum, bum. It's, for younger kids, "let's do a treasure hunt outside. I hid some things in the backyard, bet you can't find it" because almost all kids love treasure hunts. It gives them something they feel in control of. It's outside, it's fresh air, they're moving. It's a really nice way to decompress after being at the other

parents' house. And now, in a sense, you're creating a win. Whatever that looks like in your house, it could be that you always eat or drink the same food or drink when you come back. But consistency is really, really helpful.

Louise (12:39)
I know that you talk a lot about giving something for kids to feel in control of. I am a huge fan of that. And I've seen it work really well with Sol's kids, since I'm with them a lot of the time. ⁓ And also this point about the anxiety that a parent feels

of, "oh, my kids are going to be so messed up." And you talk a lot about letting go of the worry about how your kids are going to turn out. I I always think when I listen to your podcast, my mom would say, "sit straight because someday you might be eating at the White House." Now we know that I...

Kirk (13:14)
You happy now?

Louise (13:15)
have no desire to go eat dinner at the White House.

What would you say to a parent who just cannot let go of the worry of how their kid is gonna turn out? "We've gotta do X, Y, Z so that by the time they're a certain age, they have this thing figured out," right?

Kirk (13:31)
I'd say you can let go of that, I totally get it. And it comes from a place of love, We love our kids more than anything else. And we want so desperately for them to be successful. And your mom wants you to sit up in case you were ever at the White House, That's not really want your mom just has a lot of control issues. And so so we have to acknowledge that like, I have control issues. I want things done a certain way. Well, that gives me a certain amount of order.

When you were a little kid, maybe you grew up, I'm not saying you, but you grew up in a home where there was not a lot of order. Maybe there's an alcoholic parents. So you as a kid, very wisely if I don't create a little order in this isn't gonna be a good childhood. So you learned

how to pacify your alcoholic parent, you figured out how to make things work. You grow up, that serves you really well. A lot of nurses, people in the helping professions had that background because they did it as a kid. So it works really well professionally, but then you sabotage your relationships and your own life because then you learn to take care of everybody else, but you never took care of yourself.

I like to be free from those things. So managing your own anxiety and being aware of it. Our anxiety causes the exact opposite response that we want. The more that I lecture my child, I'm actually being responsible for them. I'm actually saying, you can't do this without me showing you and telling you every day how to do it. Our phrase is,

when we step back as parents, it gives our kids space to step up and be responsible for themselves. I don't think any of you want to go to college with your child or, go move in with their first boyfriend when they're 23, right? So you have to release yourself from that pressure and that guilt and know that what you are modeling is way more important. Casey, our son's almost 33. I'm like, "hey, Casey,

what are my favorite lectures of yours, that I ever gave?" He goes, "Dad, I don't remember any of them. All I remember is I saw you change right in front of me to go from being like grandpa to being the dad you are." He said, "I saw you working out. I saw how you treated other people. I saw what you ate. I saw how you lived life. And I took the good parts of that and I decided,

I'd like to be more like my dad in that area." There's no need to ever lecture about being generous to other people if you're being generous to other people. Let's say you're divorced and you're mom raised four teenage boys on her own

because they got divorced. We're all pretty decent guys. I'm not being mean. I love my mom. She's passed now, but she wasn't very bright. She didn't have a lot of life wisdom. None of us have things like, "remember when mom said that?" But here's what we knew. My mom is kind of a badass. She left my dad, which was hard to do back in the early 70s. She worked really hard. She developed MS.

She never complained. She just loved us and loved people. But I don't have any great wisdom from my mom, except the way she lived. And we all decided, "do we want to be like my dad or like my mom?" Relieve yourself of that pressure and know, you're doing your best, you're going to mess

You're not ruining your kids. Your kids are going to be okay.

Louise (16:49)
Yeah, I also think to the people who are divorced who subtly or even subconsciously, kind of outside of their awareness, do the comparison, the competition, "I'm going to be the better parent" and probably serves to backfire, when you're putting out that energy.

Kirk (17:05)
Yeah, and understandably so why you would do that, right? Because sometimes you have a case of where dad's the Disney dad and doesn't say no and gives the kids things and then mom is put in the position of, I'm the one who has to be the grownup and say no. I've got to overcompensate here. So it's just hard. The truth is, all of it's hard, A couple that stays together,

sometimes that's harder because now you have a spouse in the house who is actively undermining you 24 hours a day. So I'm not diminishing how hard the divorce part is, but do what you can do. You lead, you, you model self-control and your kids will pick up on that.

Louise (17:46)
When parents get divorced, depending on the age, of course, a lot of the times the kids

feel like it didn't have to happen. They don't have a higher understanding of relationship dynamics and issues. And so all they think is, "well, it would have been better and my life would have been easier if you had stayed together or if I were in an intact family." I'm wondering, obviously it would have to be age appropriate and a conversation to be had at a certain age, but

what would you say to a kid that had that mindset that just said, "my parents just messed everything up by separating.

Kirk (18:21)
I think the best you can do is just validate that. Like, "of course you would think that. You didn't cause this and now think how much more complicated it is for you. You've got separate Christmases..." and I would just validate that because there's no answer to it. You can't go into "well, if you really knew what your mom was like, your dad was like, haven't you noticed some of those narcissistic

I like intense validation of like, "of course, you should feel confused at times. You should be angry that this happened." But here's the boundary with it. "Of course you're angry. You should be angry. You should be angry at me and dad. I get that." The boundary is...

you don't then go to, okay, so then it's okay for you to call me names or punch holes in the wall or hit me. And again, this has to be age appropriate. But sometimes you'll get a situation where a teenage boy, I've had this a lot, will start talking very disrespectfully to his mom. And a lot of times this is hard because a teenage boy is already

5'10 and the mom is like 5'5. Now I've got a 14 year old boy talking down to his mom and the appropriate response again as long as it's safe is to say, "I want to apologize

You grew up watching your dad talk to me like that, but that's not happening anymore." See, it's a self-respect thing to me for a mom to say, "uh-uh, that pattern drops now. Now, here's what you can say. You can tell me, mom, I'm really angry at you. I'm really frustrated by this situation. I'm really PO'd."

But you don't call your mom names. And I'm sorry you saw your dad do that, but that's not what a good man does." Now, some people could say like, you're knocking your husband. No, your husband knocked himself already by exhibiting that behavior in front of his kids. I don't want moms always feeling like:

I took it from my husband, now my teenage son is doing it. And what the teenage son needs to see is no. "That's why I left your father" in front of a daughter, it's really important. You don't ever let a man talk to you like that. "That's why I left because he's not all at fault, but I do not ever expect to be treated like that by another human being."

Louise (20:27)
I think it's important to remember to keep it focused on the behavior rather than the personality. I know as a kid, my parents had separated when I was very young and I got sometimes, "that's just like something your father would do." And from my perspective, I'm like, "well, you hated him. So thanks a lot. Thanks for that comparison."

Kirk (20:46)
With my mom, we were old enough. We saw what my dad was So essence, there wasn't even really anything to say because it was just understood that we all needed to leave him and that house. it gets tricky because in a lot of divorce situations, there's not one person that's extra It's just

'We just didn't mix it. It didn't work out well. We were both, young and immature when we got married.' And I think even that would be appropriate to say, "look, your mom and I, your dad and I, we were young and immature. And what I want for you is to not make the same mistake that we did." And if it is amicable, it's great to say, "you know what? Your dad's a good person. He just wasn't right for me. And the truth is I wasn't right for him."

perfectly great to apologize to your kids, but not every day. Not to keep like, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry because that just feeds it and it makes it weak. it's like, look, "I made some bad decisions and I shouldn't have, and that's hurt you. And so if you're angry at me, totally understand that. And if it takes you some time to work through," 

especially right after a it takes you some time to work through that, take your time. You should be feeling these feelings." Because if you don't do that, then kids can feel confused about that as well. Like, why do I feel these awful feelings toward my mom or dad? "You should. And that's normal. And that's okay to do. And we'll work through that over time.

Louise (22:16)
Yeah, allowing what is, rather than trying to change it or rationalize it away or just saying, all of you is welcome, and whatever's coming up is normal. And we're going to just deal with it.

Kirk (22:28)
For me, the term we use a lot on the podcast is just normalizing. Kids who struggle with anxiety, which is a lot of kids, instead of "it's no big deal. You'll love that new class." It's like, no, "of course you're anxious. Your stomach should be upset. You're going to a new place where you don't know anybody. The other kids may pick on you. You might not be good at this new Tae Kwon Do class. So of course you don't want to do." That's not excusing it. It's just saying, "yeah, that's normal.

We just went through a divorce. this is one of the hardest things you will ever encounter in your life. You are going to have conflicting feelings toward your mom or your dad and I. When you experience that, that's normal. There's nothing wrong with you. And guess what? We're going to make our way through this. It's going to be okay. It's just going to be

That reassurance is nice. I wouldn't go to reassurance of,

one day we'll all get along and do vacations together.

Louise (23:22)
Or "it will get easier." That's very vague and

Kirk (23:26)
Yeah, it's unreliable.

"But one thing that never changes is I will always be here for you. I will always believe the best about you." And that's what my mom basically did.

Sol (23:36)
As a co-parent myself, I know how difficult communication can be. That's why I created Best Interest, the co-parenting app that uses advanced AI technology to automatically filter out all negativity, promoting positive communication and helping you create a healthier environment for your family. Try it now and get with code Beyond10. Link in the show notes.

Sol AI (23:58)
And now, back to the show.

Louise (24:00)
If I can ask, what happened with your dad as you got older? Was there connection?

Kirk (24:06)
This was how cool my mom was for this time... So my dad had business trips. She somehow funneled away some money. It may have been from some friends. He was gonna be gone for a week. Like three days in, a Mayflower moving van showed up at our house and took everything. He came back to an empty house, so he wasn't happy. After everything settled down we had

visitation with him. It was just awkward. We went to our old house where all the furniture was gone and my dad was socially awkward. We got to late teens, so you don't want to be with either parent anyway. So that part was fine. He moved away. Later we did. My dad just didn't have the tools to have relationships, He was that old school guy.

Not making an excuse. He did the best he could with the tools that he had. We never had you would have nowadays where it's like dad lives in the same neighborhood or close by and you go and see and then there's drop off and then mom and dad maybe talk or fight. None of that kind of stuff happened,

which for us was probably better not to be near my dad.

Louise (25:10)
I think that that perspective that you hold that he was doing the best he could is a helpful one for divorce co-parenting situations where you could just be extremely judgmental and not accepting of where your co-parent is at, and really let it bother you and let it interfere with how you feel about your life your your

blended family, possibly even be impacting your connection with your kids to just be in constant frustration mode.

Kirk (25:36)
I think it's normal to be in constant frustration mode if you have an ex who's just not a good person and not a good parent, right? I would validate that as You know one thing I found as I get a little trick. Every day, give yourself seven minutes when you're in the car by yourself to just be frustrated with your a friend, your sister

whoever, your mom and say, "hey, I need seven minutes to say what an effing, it out. But don't let that linger over the course of the evening because a lot of times it's those little subtle comments. "You know, if your dad would have packed your lunch today, you wouldn't have been...." And then it's those little arrows.

Get it out. But what I found is the time limit. I give myself seven minutes and then after that I go to problem solving mode. I put on a different attitude. It's OK that you have bad nights. And if it's soon after divorce or

If your ex got remarried very quickly, started having other kids, that's going to hurt and it's partly going to hurt because your kids are going to be hurt. If you're sad, you don't have to cover that up. If your kids ask and they're old enough, you can just say, "I am sad about that. You know why? Because it's a perfectly normal human emotion."

Louise (26:49)
This concept of giving yourself seven minutes a day, it's both not a lot of time and more than most of us give ourselves to really be fully in whatever challenging emotion we're struggling with. When we don't give ourselves that container, then it's seeping out all the time in little ways, and it's impacting everyone around us because they're feeling feelings that are going unspoken.

As somebody in a stepparent role and who listens to your podcasts a lot and likes to experiment with the scripts that you teach.

And at the same time, I am not kid's parent. I'm a parental figure. I feel that they respect me and we're very close. But I'm curious what you would say about blended family dynamics and how to apply

your philosophy and your ideas in a really healthy, constructive way.

Kirk (27:42)
Okay, so a couple things. If you're the spouse who wants to do it differently and you see your spouse's way isn't working as well, one, you can model it, and say, "hey, you're a really good mom, dad. I've noticed this pattern..."

Sometimes mentioning a pattern is helpful. "I've just noticed like the last 14 times we have talked to your 14 year old like this, it blows up." Sometimes I say, "so could we try it this way for like the next week or two? Let's just see how it works." If you come and say, "we need to change our entire parenting paradigm," "I'm out, it's too much." But if you're like,

specific situation with your five-year-old: "when you come home from work, you start talking about Legos on the floor and you're kind of negative because you have a high need for order and then he gets upset and then you get in a fight and then I have to step in. That's not working really well. So, can we try this for next week? You come home and you sit on the floor with your five-year-old and say, man, I love how creative you are. What did you build? And you affirm your child. Let's see how his behavior changes."

Using specifics is really good because just saying "you don't handle things fine. You guys will be better without me." But being able to be specific and say, "hey, can we try this?"

I think the biological parent, especially at first, does almost all the discipline. What the step-parent does is come in behind and beside the biological parent and calm them down and help them be a better parent because now, we like having you in this house because you helped my mom or dad be a better parent. But otherwise,

if a step-parent comes in and starts bossing me around as a kid, my honest response is you go F yourself because you're not my mom

Louise (29:27)
I know a lot of blended families have a hard time with the rate of bonding and getting to that place of cohesion and they want it to be faster and they want it to be now and why hasn't it happened already? And I think there's a lot of learning in that for the people who are wanting things to go faster than they go, especially depending on the age of the kid.

It's gonna take the time it takes. And it might never be as great as you have as a fantasy in your mind.

Kirk (29:53)
and I would prepare for that and I would say, I love that that's your intention. But if I can be tough, you have to be the grownup. It's not about you and your new spouse and your love story, which is awesome. Because to your kid, you're just like an intruder right now. You may end up being a good friend to me, you may end up being awesome. But if they're already kind of into a family thing, now it's like...

Wait, don't expect me to be happy about this. In fact, I think you can release your kids from that. I think you should say, if they're a little bit older, "I don't expect you to love or even like this new person that's coming into your home." Think what happens. a turbulent home, chaos, a lot of conflict, you get divorced. Now let's just say,

mom and her two or three kids are in their home and it's like we've got this single mom and her kids vibe going on right where it's kind of nice and peaceful and good and maybe we don't have as much money as we used to have but at least we've got this little now this new guy starts coming over a few nights a changes that dynamic if that new guy has kids of his own, that's a threat to me.

And then you add on new guy coming in doesn't discipline the way my mom does. Hey, F you, buddy. We don't want you around here. So my advice to step parents coming in is to tread lightly, to not impose yourself. I know you're so excited to be with this new person. Go slowly. It's not about you anymore. It's not about you. It is about innocent kids

who didn't cause this to happen because if you come in too kind of hot and heavy with like, "they're gonna love having me around and we're gonna have so much fun together." Maybe not. Maybe they don't like you. Just because my mom likes you doesn't mean I like you. And you have to respect that.

I err on the side of protecting innocent kids who didn't choose any of this. And so your ego and your desires are second.

And that'll serve you well in the end because they'll see that new guy respects me. That'll buy you so much freedom in the future.

Louise (31:58)
I just keep thinking of the flip side too, which is that we don't want to go into, "I'm so guilty for repartnering." I need to overcompensate because my poor kids now have to have a stepparent. We have to find that middle path of you can feel how you feel and it makes total sense. And this is how life works out sometimes. Right?

Kirk (32:16)
Yes,

and be even matter of fact, you don't have to explain. If you're being respectful of them and not just bringing in some new dude that's showing up for dinner every night and they're like, "Mom, I really don't like, you know, that you're seeing him." You'd be like, "of course you don't.

and I want to have a really healthy, good relationship with another man. And so I'm going to do this and I'm going to date, but I'm going to do it slowly,

but I am going to do it. See, I think that's a nice middle ground. And I'll say one other thing, because you've mentioned guilt. I don't want you to feel guilty, but you're going to feel guilty. So give yourself that, normalize that. Of course I'm feeling guilty. That comes with the territory. What I don't want it to become is that guilt that just is all the time and then causes you to overcompensate.

Give yourself seven minutes every day to work through your guilt. And then to say, "I feel guilty. I'm unsure of how to do this." that's all parents. I don't even know if I'm being a good parent half the time, but I know that my intentions are good. And if you can say, "hey, I know my intentions are good in this and I'm gonna mess up."

Honesty is a really good thing.

Louise (33:22)
Yeah, I love the clarity that you advise around just being straight. I think that people in divorced families often feel like "I can't speak to these things. I can't be forthcoming. I don't want to put ideas in my kids' head. You keep coming back to

just being honest with what's going on and acknowledging their truths as well. Kirk, time is flying by. So I just wanted to see if we can get in one more question before we do a little lightning round at the end. Yeah, so I wanted to ask you, because I know you have a lot of experience with teens and I find myself really enjoying

Kirk (33:48)
⁓ I'm around.

Louise (34:00)
being in the lives of my partner's kids, in this great middle childhood space. And I think because of my own history and my own trauma of just how challenging it was to go through puberty and be in adolescence, I'm sort of bracing myself for the challenges that I feel might be coming our way. I'm wanting to ask,

if you have any words of hope or encouragement, like it might not be so bad as I imagine, or it might not be so difficult.

Kirk (34:29)
I actually think it's gonna be...

I think you're going to enjoy the teenage years. I think you have an opportunity as the stepparent to be ⁓ not the friend, but kind of like the sounding board. That's not dad, like some things are hard to take to dad, but you can be the outlet during the teen years.

Especially if there's a girl to say, hey, I was going to go out. Do you want to go out and grab something to eat? Like at nine o'clock on a school night, being out after dark with teens, they open up so much more. So I think you can actually enjoy the teen years.

And I think you can kind of soften some of that stuff between kids and dad and say, "hey, I know your dad, that approach that you're taking with your dad..." because teens are going to come and look for independence. You can come along and say, "hey, I know what you're after here.

You want the independence. Here's a different way to handle it." So it's not like you're undermining your husband at all, but you're coming alongside. And I actually just like this through the teen years anyway, which is I'm coming along and guiding I'm also realizing they're doing the teen years for the first time ever. They're going to mess it up.

I actually enjoyed the teen years more than any other years, because I was more mature by then. I learned not to react. And I could say when Casey came at me with attitude, I could say, "hey, Casey, what I've noticed is when you come with that kind of attitude, you're struggling with something. So if you want to grab some chips, I'll grab the salsa, I'll meet you out on the deck." Or "if you want to go grab, go to Chipotle and grab something to eat," which he always did.

Eating with teens is great. Do you want to go get a smoothie? You can be the one who takes them to get the smoothie and just listens and ask questions. "So if I'm hearing right, here's what you want. The way you're going about it with your dad right now, not working. So how else could you handle this? What could you do, teenager, in this situation to demonstrate that you're responsible?

Because right now you're just asking for stuff. What's your part?" I think you can come along and say, "Hey, I'm watching from the outside here."

You could do that with your husband too and you can be like, "hey, I'm watching this. I'm seeing the pattern. This is this is starting to escalate. Look, how could we handle this differently?" And then you get to be you don't have to tell them what to do. You can be kind of like that nice sounding board who's the peacemaker that gives both sides wisdom. I think you're going to enjoy that because I think that builds trust with the teenagers and they're like,

"Hey, we like having you around here, because if you weren't here and it was just us and our dad, he'd be Mr. No, or he'd let us walk all over him. We like your stability here." I think you're going to have great teenage years with the kids. I really do.

Louise (37:15)
That's very reassuring. Thank you. It's so funny. The other day we were utilizing one of your tools. We're trying to figure out what's the right amount of screen time, which who are we to talk because we watched TV all our childhoods. Look, we're fine. We approached it as, what do you guys think is the right amount of time to be on screens?

And Sol's son said, he's seven, he said, we get an hour in a day, we should not be allowed the next day to watch at all. That's way more strict than we could have come up with. Getting their buy-in, getting them to think it's their idea, it's their rules that they're coming up with for themselves.

Kirk (37:43)
I love you seven-year-old. That was easy.

Louise (37:54)
They know themselves best, right? How can we say what is best for them when we grew up in such a different reality? And so it was this really empowering thing. Sol and I were looking at each other like, yeah, yeah, look at us go, that worked well.

Kirk (38:06)
was pretty good. And

if he had come back and said, "I should get four hours a day," he can be like, "dude, that's not happening either. So why don't you try again? Nice try, my If you give them some ownership within your boundaries, they often know the right thing. Something I always ask Casey, and it wasn't that big a deal with him as it is now with teens, is how do you you've spent

Louise (38:13)
Totally. Yeah.

Kirk (38:27)
two hours scrolling TikTok. Feel good about yourself? You feel good about humanity? Do you feel energized? Or do you feel a little bit of beating yourself up because you just wasted two hours? yeah, I kind of feel like that, but it's really hard not to do. Of course, because guess what? Most adults do the same thing. So what do you want to do differently around here so we can break that cycle? Like with little kids,

If they're doing a lot, it's like, for every whatever, 45 minutes on your screens, you got to spend 10 minutes outside. I don't care if you're just sitting on the deck or on the front steps, go get some fresh air. then, you can come up with some things that aren't like, you know, when I was a kid, we didn't have electricity. And like, yeah, you're old. So no, I like the way your hand, I think that's a great way to handle that.

Louise (39:02)
I love that.

Yeah, yeah, a lot of your tools have proven very, very effective, very helpful. So we appreciated it. All right, are you ready for the lightning round before we wrap up?

Kirk (39:21)
Really,

that sounds like a lot of pressure, but I'll do my best.

Louise (39:24)
Let's work on your intuition a little. So, you know, one word answer is fine. And if there is something that you wanna pause to elaborate on a little bit, that's also fine. Sound good? Okay. The biggest lie parents are sold is...

Kirk (39:31)
Okay. Yeah.

that you're responsible for your child's happiness.

Louise (39:38)
Beautiful. Peace starts when....

Kirk (39:40)
kind of sound corny inside of you. But it does.

Louise (39:45)
Yeah, yeah, agreed. A triggered parent's best friend is...

Kirk (39:49)
It's gonna be more than one word. Sit in the midst of your trigger, practice sitting in it without fixing it until no longer viscerally, it'll still bother you. Here's my one word answer, sit down or sit, sit is one word.

Louise (39:56)
Hmm, beautiful.

Great, great. Doesn't have to be one word, but yeah, When your child yells, "I hate you," they're really saying...

Kirk (40:09)
They're just mad that you won't give them what they want, most likely.

Louise (40:14)
The opposite of control is not chaos, it's...

Kirk (40:17)
Release. Freedom. I don't have to.

Louise (40:19)
That's great. A strong willed child is really a...

Kirk (40:23)
independent, brilliant kid who's going to have his own business and boss other people around.

Louise (40:29)
Love it. The most powerful two word phrase you can say to your child is.

Kirk (40:34)
Love you.

Louise (40:34)
You know your boundary is working when...

Kirk (40:36)
Can I expand on this for a second? Boundaries don't work that well. So I didn't want to say like when it's working, boundaries are meant to be broken. I'd say, you know your boundaries working when you handle the boundary being broken well, because it's going to be broken.

Louise (40:38)
Please, yeah.

Beautiful.

Yeah, love that. Instead of aiming for a happy child, aim for a...

Kirk (40:58)
Mmm.

Mine's usually instead of an obedient child, I want a responsible child instead of a happy child. I'd say mine would be ⁓ emotionally mature, emotionally well-regulated child.

Louise (41:09)
And last one, the tool I wish every co-parent had is...

Kirk (41:13)
listening to your spouse who's smarter than you.

Seriously, that's the right answer.

Louise (41:17)
For the audience member who is a co-parent maybe going through a really hard time right now, wanting to adopt the Calm approach, what is one thing that you would recommend that they do to start to reclaim their peace?

Kirk (41:29)
Just focus on yourself. Just sit in the midst of that trigger and just know it's going to be okay. And it just starts with you inside, which sounds hokey.

Louise (41:38)
I mean, our kids are mirrors, right? They show us

Kirk (41:41)
Absolutely.

My son was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I had to grow up. And I always say they're like little therapists for free because they point out triggers and buttons you didn't know you had. Instead of "they trigger me, they push my buttons" it's like, "thank you

for letting me know how immature I am" and normalize that. I don't have guilt for stuff like that. I'm immature in this area, so I'm working on it, but that's normal. As you get older, it's so much easier. Casey, 90 % of the stuff we worried about, we didn't need to. 90 % of it just didn't matter.

So relax.

Louise (42:16)
You

just made me think of a time when I was arguing with Sol's son and, "I can't believe he said that to me." Sol said, "you can't believe a six year old would talk like that?"

Kirk (42:25)
Why not? Why not? Wake up every day and expect them to be moody and not do what you asked them to do. And then if they do, it's like, ⁓ that was a good easier day.

Louise (42:34)
Totally, Kirk, it's been such a pleasure. I want to just give you an opportunity to say anything you want to share about the Calm Parenting podcast and your programs and let people know where they can find out more about your work and your offerings.

Kirk (42:47)
I would just love for people to listen to the Calm Parenting Podcast. We  keep it about 22 minutes long, try to have one single focus and an action step every time. And I love doing it. I think you'll get a lot out of it. And we're at CelebrateCalm.com or just look up Calm Parenting Podcast. You'll find us in Instagram. I'm really active on Instagram. So @CalmParentingPodcast

Louise (43:07)
Great.

Great. And thank you for what you do. I have learned a lot from the podcast and even the sort of repetitive messages it takes a few times to really absorb and to then implement. The first time I hear something, it's like, that's a good idea. And then the third time I hear it, I'm like, I'm going to go home and try this. And it's been amazing. The kids have responded really well. Yeah.

Kirk (43:27)
Good for you. That's awesome. Well, good. Well, I'm

looking forward to hearing about all the teenage years. I think it's going to be awesome. I'm really excited for you actually. Okay. Thank

Louise (43:36)
I will report back, thank you.

Sol (43:40)
Thanks for joining us on the Coparenting Beyond Conflict podcast. To support our show, subscribe or leave a rating. Links for all books and resources mentioned on appear in our show notes or on CoparentingBeyondConflict.com. See you next time.

Sol (43:58)
The commentary and opinions available on this podcast are for informational and entertainment purposes only, and not for the purpose of providing legal or psychological advice. You should contact a licensed attorney, coach, or therapist in your state to obtain advice with respect to any particular issue or problem.