Podcast Episode 352: 5 Parenting Hacks to End Power Struggles with Strong-Willed Kids Transcripts

Please note: Transcripts for the No Guilt Mom Podcast were created using AI. As a result, there may be some minor errors.

She said, Case, need to take out the trash. And he said, I’ll do it later. Typical, the grass snake put it off. So when he talked back, I was like, Case, you need to take out the trash. Dad, I’ll get it. And that just triggered me so much. I was like, no, you do it now. He went running off. I’ve escalated everything. He slammed his bedroom door. I saw the printout of what he had been working on. And that’s when everything in our whole family changed.

Welcome to the No Guilt Mom podcast. I’m your host JoAnn Crohn with my dancing co-host, Brie Tucker. We are recording this episode coming off of a little bit of a break. We just finished our big Happy Mom Summit and it’s fantastic actually now to just sit down and be like the one-on-one talking again. But we brought all the energy, Brie. All the energy.

energy and the double espresso Brie had this morning.

Yes. Yes. Well, our guest today is we’re going to answer a question that we get a lot here at the podcast and in our balance community. It’s how do I get my partner on board with parenting strategies? If you right now are trying to improve the way you parent your kids, you improve your relationship, be calmer, but you can’t quite

get your partner on board. This episode is for you because we have Kirk Martin. He’s the founder of celebrate calm.com and hosted the top ranking podcast, calm parenting podcast. helped stop the power struggles with the most strong willed kids by showing parents the quickest way to change their child’s behavior is to first control your own. That is so us here at no guilt mom.

Speaker 2 (01:52.15)

We can’t wait to talk with Kurt and so now let’s get on with the show.

INTRO MUSIC

Welcome Kirk to the podcast, we’re so happy to have you here.

JoAnn & Brie I am super excited to be on.

You align directly with us because we are telling moms, we’re like, cannot control anyone else. You can just control yourself. But in that, there is so much power that you have when you control yourself. So I want to get into it with you a little bit, talking about like how you grew up and then how you kind of like transitioned into this calm parenting sphere. And let’s start though with your dad. You talk about your dad being the

like he was career military. What was it like growing up?

Oh, well, obviously it was a ton of fun. I mean, you’re with your dad in the car and all that. So it was just, it was that my way or highway approach. And it was just that old school, very authoritarian. And so you just carry that with you and then you get married and have kids and then you revert to what you know. And so I tried the same thing with our son and I always described Casey in that, um, he like came out of the womb with boxing gloves on.

Speaker 1 (03:41.516)

Right? So I know a lot of men are like, yeah, I’m just going to double down on my discipline. And the strong will child like quadruples down on the resistance.They’re like, I see your discipline and I’m going to double that down with a heck no it’s it’s kind of with these kids, if you’re like, I’m going to wash your mouth out with soap and they’ll be like, could we use Irish spring? I like that flavor better.

Yeah, I like that one better. Or you tell your daughter like, if you don’t pick up your toys, I’m going to take them to Goodwill. And then you notice her like putting them in a bag and walking down the street, right? Like, I’ll just give them away myself. So it just doesn’t work.

Speaker 2 (04:22.094)

That is a strong willed child. I was not a strong willed child. I was always the good girl, but my sister was the strong willed child. I would see that dynamic play out between my dad who was on my way or the highway and her. So much so that one time she got so mad at him and she was drinking a strawberry cream frappuccino in the back seat of the car. My mom and I were outside the car so mad. All of a sudden we saw this big like and the entire front window was covered with strawberry cream frappuccino. She had thrown her drink on the driver window when arguing with my dad in the parked car, thankfully. like strong-willed children, like they cannot be parented by any kind of force whatsoever.

Right, they’ll resist. The more you try to rush them, the slower they go. Right. They almost have to initially reject whatever you say first. Right. So there’s that initial no because, and here’s the thing that’s hard is they don’t care about consequences because they don’t care about losing anything except their autonomy. They want their independence even. And here’s, you saw this with your sister. They’ll choose the harder path. because they’re kind of stove touchers. They want to touch the hot stove and figure it out themselves. And so if you are that parent that is very kind of like, I’m just going to show you and very rigid, it’ll just never work. And you’ll just have power struggles all the time. But it also doesn’t mean you go to the opposite extreme and just say, well, you’re really difficult. So you can do whatever you want. Right. no.run all over you there. So where we come in is kind of right in between those two to say, no, I can be the firm, calm, authoritative leader and I can lead them to calm first by modeling myself at modeling it myself and then kind of leading them to that place. Cause you can lead them, but you can’t force them.

Speaker 2 (06:29.368)

Yeah, exactly. They will resist all kinds of force. Now, I know that when you said that you basically did what you knew, you did the my way or the hybrid approach, but there was a moment in time where you were like, this is not working. And it was when your son was working on the computer and your wife asked him to take out the trash. Can you share a little bit what happened there?

Yeah, was a typical situation, right? Like, so I’m in the living room, they’re in the kitchen, he’s doing some work and she says, Kace, you need to take out the trash. And he said, I’ll do it later. Got it. know, typical, procrastinate, put it off. Well, when I grew up, you didn’t talk to your parents like that, right? It was like, yes, sir. And you just did it. So when he talked back, I was like, Kace, need to take out the trash. Dad, I’ll get it. And that just triggered me so much.

And so I went into the kitchen. like, and so I would start laying into him and it got personal, right? Like, why can’t you ever do what you’re asked? How are you ever going to be successful in life? And he said, dad, just give me a minute. And I was like, no, you do it now. And Casey was not a back down kind of kid. had a really good mouth on him. Now he didn’t use it this time, but I tell the story of one time when I said, you can’t talk to me like that young man. And his reply was just did. so,

Yeah, it’s a miracle that I’m not in jail. yeah. You know what? We used to joke, you know how most kids will pull out like whatever. Well, his thing one time I told him to do something and he just said, wow. And I was like, you were too lazy to even say whatever. you’re just wow. Right. But it communicated such disdain, right? was honestly, it was just beautifully done.

And he’s an awesome young man now. But in that moment, when I was doing that, he finally got upset and I would see him start to cry, right? Because these are really emotional kids too. They can be really defiant, but they’re also really sensitive kids. And they have really big hearts, just never toward you or their siblings, right? They’ll do anything for everybody else. And so I kind of just, provoked him to anger and he went off running off.

Speaker 1 (08:47.662)

And I, of course, escalated everything. And as he went off to his room, slammed his bedroom door because he knew that was a trigger, right? You don’t have to respect me, but you have to respect my furniture. And so when I came back downstairs, I saw the printout of what he had been working on. And it was a school project and the project. it’s hard for me to say this is like 25 years ago. It’s still emotional. And what he had written was, the project was a teacher wanted him to write about his superhero. And he, course, being strong willed said, I don’t have a superhero. They’re dumb. want to write about my dad because my dad is my superhero. was brutal. And it’s like, cause my dad gets up early on the weekends after he’s worked hard. So all week long to take me to the ice rink, my dad takes me places. even when I don’t even behave well. was like, was beautiful and brutal at the same time. And that was the wake up call when I started to realize I couldn’t change my son. was trying to change his very nature. And then I really needed to work on myself. And that’s when everything in our whole family changed because I was, I wasn’t, you know, the thing is I wasn’t even like a horrible dad, right? It was like we spent time together.

It wasn’t like I was just always yelling, but whenever we spent time together, it’s like, I was just too critical. It was never good enough. And so that set off kind of everything that we do today.

It is such a wake up call when something like that happens, Kirk. Right after this, we’re going to get into what you suggest should be the first step for families to do, especially the moms in the audience right now, to start this conversation in their house, especially with their partners and getting them on board with changing the way they react versus thinking that their kids have to change. We’ll do that right after this.

Speaker 2 (10:57.634)

So Kirk, when we’re in these situations with our kids and our kids are upset and like we’re upset as well, you have a calming process to both calm the child down and calm ourselves down. Can you share that with us?

Yeah. So I’ll give you an example in our home of how it used to happen and then how I kind of learned to do it differently. So let’s say our son was in the kitchen yelling at my wife. And so my typical response is charge in, you know, how many times have I told you, you don’t yell at your mom, keep this up. And I would escalate things. And what I realized later was I needed my son to behave so that I could behave. What I was really saying is if you don’t calm down right now,

I’m not sure I can calm down. And so here’s kind of five quick steps. Number one is don’t try to calm your child down. Cause how many of us like when we’re upset and someone says, Bri, you need to calm down. And you’re like, you know what you can go do to yourself.

I can tell you what Brie does. I can tell you. I would do the same. I’d do the same.

We all do that. So this is a little bit different mindset. So I want you to focus on this. Instead of trying to calm them down, give the child something they’re in control of. Because the reason most of us get upset is we have a perceived loss of control of his situation. Next step, control ourselves. And that can be sitting down. Look, it is almost impossible to sit down and yell at someone.

Speaker 1 (12:30.466)

You feel stupid, right? It’s into me right now! I’m feet above me! Yeah, it’s a little weird with the power dynamic.

with you’ve got a 16 year old daughter, if you walk into the room, hands on hips, young lady, we need to have a talk about your attitude. She’s going to be like, what attitude? And then you’re just going to, but if you went and sat down and even started coloring, coloring is a, it’s impossible to scream when you’re coloring. And even with a 16 year old daughter, right? If she’s on a hunger strike or something or upset and you, or a four year old or nine year old, when you’re sitting, it slows your world down so you can begin to see the situation differently and problem solve. And then the third thing I like motion changes emotion, just talking a lot and a lot of moms, I love you all, but you get into the habit of thinking like, well, I’ll talk my child into being calm. It makes them furious and process language when you’re upset.

Speaker 1 (13:38.574)

So I like some kind of movement and you’re a busy mom. You’ve got three kids are upset and just saying, Oh, you know what? I could really use your help. Do me a favor, grab some spaghetti from the pantry. Could you get that top of the jar off for me? You just gave them something they’re in control of. You didn’t try to calm them down. You use some movement and so intensity sometimes this is a weird one, but you know how if you have a child comes home from school, makes a paper airplane. fly the airplane, it doesn’t work right. So the strong willed child is gonna pick up the airplane and crumple it up. Stupid airplane, I hate this. And all good moms and dads come in, honey, that was a really good airplane. And your child’s like, duh, if it were a good airplane, it would have flown right. You’re an idiot. Right? And then we’re like, I’m just trying to be sympathetic with you. But sympathy and empathy sometimes with an upset strong willed child.

Sounds condescending. Yeah. So I’d rather come in and say, oh, if I were you, I’d be frustrated too. You were picturing that airplane all day at school, not paying attention in class. Kind of kidding with that, but that’s the reality. You wanted to do a good airplane and it didn’t fly right. That’s frustrating. See, that’s validating. Otherwise it sounds like a husband with his wife. Oh honey, there’s no need to be upset. You’re just overreacting. Right? We don’t like when our…

I’ll see red more than that.

Yes, and that’s what it does to a child. And then I give some space with an airplane example. Hey, I’ve got to go get a drink. I’m going to the bathroom. Hey, when I get back and you’ll notice the tone, even matter of fact tone, really important. I don’t go with this tone, but I also don’t go with that really sweet mommy tone because that sounds like you’re not taking it seriously. Even does that makes now it’s like.

Speaker 2 (15:27.565)

Yeah. Mean the mommy tone at first when you say it it like slightly offends me and bristles me, but I know what you’re saying I know what you’re saying need more definition here. What exactly is the mommy tone, guys?

It’s the higher voice register that you go when you’re talking to a baby, right? okay, well.

Speaker 1 (15:49.805)

you’re a fan. I like it. I’m seeing that. can see on your face.

With me, I’m like, even though my background is early childhood, like zero to five, and I love hanging out with kids that age, I don’t get to see kids that age that much anymore. So I have teenagers. So I have not used that mama voice in a long time. That’s why I’m kind of like going, okay, I’m sure I did. I just don’t use it as much right now. My tone goes more of the angry tone.

Exactly. I would say, right, so we don’t want the angry tone. We don’t want snotty. You know what? If you would have done your homework last night, you wouldn’t have. I don’t want that. But it’s that kind of what we’ve shifted to because we don’t want authoritarian my way or the highway. We’ve gone to that where we just talk like this all the time to our children, kind of in a question mark. And I’m not trying to be offensive with a strong willed child, even a three year old. It sounds condescending and weak.

And they’re kind of like, look, I’m three going on 23. Talk to me like an adult. And it just, so with that child who’s really upset, so when my son’s yelling at my wife, just saying, buddy, I can tell you’re upset. He’s gonna be like, what are you talking about? So when I walk in the room and I say, hey, I can tell you’re frustrated. And I hold up a football and say, hey, when you’re ready, come outside. I’ll help you with whatever you’re struggling with. Sometimes when he had a mouthy with me, it was kind of mouthy, I’d say,

Hey, the last 43 times you talked to me like that, what it told me was you’re frustrated, anxious or hungry. Cause those are his three triggers. So two options. Talk to me like that if you want, but it’s just not going to end well for you. end up losing yourself.

Speaker 2 (17:27.841)

Yeah. I can mimic the mommy tone, Brie, if you want to hear it from the female perspective. goes, I know you’re so upset right now, but know that we can’t do both things at the same time. That’s okay. Versus, yeah, we’re not doing candy for dinner tonight. I feel like that works for the younger kids. It does not. It does not.

Speaker 3 (17:51.586)

gonna say like when it comes to like the super strong-willed kids, like I only had them in small bits. It wasn’t my kids, I think the way JoAnn did that was perfectly. With more compliant, easy kids, be soft and sweet all you want because you don’t really need to parent them because they’re just going to do what you want anyway. With the strong will kids, you know what? It sounds like you’re not taking me seriously. It sounds condescending and patronizing versus saying, so I don’t want to go mean with stuff, but what Joanne said there was like, yeah, that’s not happening here.

We’re not doing that.

It’s very grounded. It’s a very grounding tone actually. Right? Like that whole thing of like, yeah, you should be frustrated because you should be, Hey, this assignment. Yeah. The assignment’s hard. Like, of course you don’t want to do it because you don’t want to write about something stupid. You don’t care about that’s not making an excuse. It’s just saying, think it’s really important. And then they shut down or they will walk all over you. So.

Speaker 3 (18:59.822)

I can definitely see that reaction. Yeah.

They will, or they’ll be like, okay, and they’ll go and do whatever they want anyways. Just to make you be quiet and go away. That’s typically what I see. I was a teacher. I was a fifth grade teacher for many years, and then having my sister as a little sister. You can see the tone, the things that work and the things they don’t. My sister is so accomplished now, by the way. She’s like employee in the month. She’s a paramedic at a hospital. These strong-willed kids turn into amazing adults.

Paramedic. Look what she does. She’s in a highly intense situation. See, that’s why I said like use intensity that’s positive because they respond to the intensity. So your sister is in highly intense situations. And then then I guarantee in those situations, she calms everybody else. yeah. I’ve got this under control. There’s blood all over the place, but I’ve got it. And I know exactly what to do. But I guaranteed like in a regular classroom, she was probably bored and looking around.

Speaker 2 (20:05.688)

She’s actually studying to be a nurse right now. And the hardest thing for her is getting through the classwork. So she goes to University of Arizona, and she is teaching a paramedic class at University of Arizona. And she’s very, very good at it. But when she’s put in a regular classroom, she has to retake classes over and over again because she cannot focus in them. Like, it is just not her vibe. And it’s just saying that kids, have different needs and in terms of her, is very, she thrives in those intense situations, which is such a skill.

just a really quick one for moms out there during homework time. Like we don’t like the table of death, which is sit at the table and we’re going to do our schoolwork. So I’d rather with your more strong willed or ADD kind of kids, let them stand at the kitchen counter where they can rock back and forth, listening to music, eating a snack, all that brain stimulation helps them actually focus. Like your sister, when you put her in an intense situation,

She hyper focuses and that’s why she is so good in the moment there. Absolutely. so, yeah, so you try to create, so does that make sense? It kind of helps with the parenting stuff of, hey, that’s why I like that intensity in the moment because it really connects, their brains connect. And if anybody has kids who are adopted or attachment issues, they associate intensity with connection.

Interesting. the worst thing in your marriage is not that you’re fighting. It’s when you don’t even care enough to fight anymore. Apathy. But if I’m a kid, kids aren’t seeking attention. They want our intense emotional engagement. so when they do something wrong, we put our phone down, young man, young lady, and now they’re like, I’ve got you now. Yeah. So it’s really interesting how their brains work.

Speaker 2 (22:06.83)

It’s the intense thing. So we went through how to calm ourselves down and how to calm our kids down. And now we’re going to figure out how we talk to our partners and our spouses. And that’s going to happen right after this. Okay, Kirk, one of the biggest questions that we get here at No Guilt Mom is, okay, I am all on board with all of these parenting techniques, but my husband is resistant. He says I’m being a pushover for doing this.

He doesn’t believe it’ll work. He’s very much a my way or the highway type of person.

Yeah, like the parents, I’m sorry, I had to throw this one in there because I hear, get accused of this all the time. Stop trying to be their friend and be their mom. trust me, I’m not their friend. But that one cuts deep, I think, for a lot of people, but it’s the same, it’s on that same train of thought.

So Kirk, as a guy who has been through kind of that change from going my way or the highway to being more, I would say thoughtful in your parenting, authoritative versus authoritarian, how do you recommend we start that conversation with our parenting partner?

Okay, I’d say three things. One is I like analogies. So here’s a good one. When your husband’s when you’re watching sports or something, men respect other men who stay cool and calm under pressure in a war. We don’t want our platoon captain saying, my gosh, they’re shooting at us. Nobody’s following that guy in business. You’re not following the business leader who’s like sales are down. Our company’s going to go out of business. You’re going to lose your job. And, and in football.

Speaker 1 (23:39.49)

Do you want the quarterback to come into the huddle at the end of the game and say, we’re losing by two touchdowns, you don’t know what route to run, you keep fumbling, let’s go score? No, you want the quarterback who comes into the huddle and says, we’re down, we’re gonna march down the field, execute our play, score and get the ball back and score again. So I like analogies with men because what happens is men, those are all the men that we respect. And for some reason, when we walk through the door of our home, if there are Legos on the floor,

It like messes with our sense of order and we lose it. So conceptually setting up first, which is in every other sphere of life, you respect men who are like this, but when you come into home, it’s not working with the kids. So another way that you can do this is, and it doesn’t have to be our podcast, we can say, Hey, I’ve been listening to this podcast by this guy. Cause cause we have a lot of men because I have the guy voice, right? And they’re like, I don’t listen to soft.

soft woman stuff, right? Because guys are kind of jerks. And we are. And so I’ve been listening and I’ve realized, now don’t bristle too much of this. If this is true, you can say, hey, I’ve been listening. I realized sometimes I do let the kids get away with things a little bit too much. So intro, depending on your husband could be, could you listen to this and help me with that?

Now that’s a really humble approach and we all know that your husband is the one needing the help. But sometimes if you go hot and heavy like, hey, you’re out of control and your kids don’t like you anymore. You better change your way of your name.

I’m laughing at the truth of that in some situations.

Speaker 1 (25:22.958)

So, I’m going to get to that one in a minute, but what I could say is, Hey, can we listen together? And I’ve noticed your authoritarian approach, your approach, it’s not working either. Right. And so I know at the office, if you’re, if you have a strategy and it’s not working, well, then you adjust your strategy. This is not working with our kids. We’ve been doing it this way for four, seven, 10, 14 years. It’s not working. And so.

You can set it up that way. Now this has to have a caveat and I need your help with this. Here’s the caveat to my next statement. Only do this if you feel physically and emotionally safe to say this. I tend to prefer talking to men like men talk to men, which is short, sweet, and direct. And it could sound like this. We’ve been doing it your way for the last four years. The kids don’t come to you anymore.

You could couch it and say, look, you’re a good dad, you’re a good man, but your way is not working anymore. Being a little bit more direct and saying that I have said before, or had women say, encourage them to say when it was safe. Look, we have a couple options here. The reason, the reason that you think I’m so soft is because you can’t control yourself. And I am now stuck in the middle.

And I have to manage the emotions of our five year old, our nine year old and our 14 year old, because when they don’t behave exactly the way you want, you start getting upset. And then I have to manage your emotion. That is so true! Well, and we can go further, but again, make sure you’re safe with this. And that’s sad that we have to say that. I am losing respect for you because I married a man.

Which re-

Speaker 1 (27:20.046)

And now I am managing the emotions of two children and my husband. Guess what stops after a while? And I’m going to do a, for Mother’s Day, I’m going to do a message on this because what happens is you lose respect for your husband, the sex stops and they’re like, you’re weaponizing sex. And it’s like, no, you’re not even a freaking grownup.

You’re not trying. You’re a man child.

Yeah, yeah, I love that term.

No, I mean, what you say there Kirk is absolutely true. And I want to like interject with the, if you feel safe. I mean, obviously if you are feeling abused in the relationship, if you are in any way afraid of your husband, that is a red flag that this relationship is not safe. And this relationship needs a lot more help than just being direct. The whole direct thing is actually

one of the things like my husband has coached me on being, he has told me like, if you don’t tell me directly to my face, what it is I’m doing wrong, I will never pick up on it.

Speaker 3 (28:28.622)

Well, like, just to be clear Kirk, I have my ex-husband who I had a lot of the parenting challenges with and I have my current husband who’s a lot like Joanne’s husband. They both like have very similar characteristics and the same thing. Like I’m trying to teach my daughter how to even talk to my current husband and trying to teach my husband how to understand my daughter who is very much like her father. So you have to talk to her in a different way.

Cause she always feels threatened and like you’re always going against her and, my husband, like, he just doesn’t get it unless you’re like, focus.

Focus on it. But also with the strategy you said like, I’ve been learning about this. I’ve been listening to this. Can you help me with that? That is a great strategy to use with strong willed children as well. I use that strategy with my kids all the time when they’re mad at something or like I’m working by myself preparing dinner in the kitchen. And I’m like, hey, like, can you help me with this? And really what I’m wanting to do is I want to teach them how to prepare dinner.

If I went in that route, they would feel defensive. They would feel like, no, I don’t want to learn that. No, but so you can kind of go at it at a different way and you can get your in and start talking about it. Another thing I wanted to add to you Kirk is that being directing, we just attended a conference. There’s a very heavy male element to the conference. It’s a marketing conference. And so many of these ex-military guys,

One in particular, his name is Andy Elliott. He’s actually here in Scottsdale, Arizona. He runs a marketing services firm, but it’s very military themed. And he gets up on stage and he says a story of how he was not present for his family. And it was his wife doing the hard work of coming to him and being like, listen, this is how your behavior is affecting the family. He was a car salesman at the time, away from home a lot. I need you here.

Speaker 2 (30:22.75)

I need you involved.” And he credits that of making his change. So I just want to throw that out there too, as this approach that you’re suggesting is very effective with a lot of people.

Good, that’s super and that leads me to this. A lot of men feel helpless to change. We’re in cavemen. My dad didn’t sit down with me and be like, here are the finer points of relationships and emotional intelligence, right? So we don’t know. And so taking that generic approach tends, well, we just need to change our parenting. I don’t know what that means. If you text your husband like, need help, he’s gonna come home and yell at the kids. If you’re like,

You need to get the children out of the house for seven and a half minutes or I’m going to be on the evening news. Okay, I have a job. Men are very mission oriented. So you could say this for the next two weeks, could we try this every time the kids do X or get upset? Could you walk in the room, sit down and just ask them a question or affirm them for men? If we would simply walk in and notice what our kids are already doing well.

It will radically change their behavior. We have it in our hearts like, well, if I’m not correcting my children, I’m not being a dad.

being soft, right? Is that a mentality that like-

Speaker 1 (31:48.776)

Absolutely. was mine. So what I like to do is, okay, honey, for a week, could we try this approach or two weeks? Because we’ve been doing it your way for like three years. It’s not working. You would have been fired at a job if you had that success rate. So you don’t have to say that, but you could.

Because depending on the relationship and the conversations, in the sense of

That could be the directness, is, hey, we’ve been doing it this way for three years. It’s objectively speaking, no emotions, objectively speaking, not working. So for two weeks, why don’t we try doing it this way and then we’ll measure the effectiveness of it. You can use guide talk if you want. And then, but here’s the thing, when they do it well and make progress, I hate to say it like this, but you almost have to treat your husbands

like a kid. Pat on the head. honey, when our daughter was screaming earlier and you walked in the room and said, honey, I’m really in the mood to go color and draw, would you help me? That was beautiful. Yeah. Like you calm the whole situation because it’s muscle memory of, that was good. Yeah, because we don’t have a lot of confidence in that. And the other thing

This may be inappropriate, but I talk to guys like this, is when I talk to men, say, if you want to have more and better sex with your wife, here’s what you need to do. Instead of escalating situations when your child is upset, because that child is the most important thing to your wife more than anything else in the world, if you can go in and you can calm them down and connect with them when they’re upset, your wife is going to look at you and say,

Speaker 1 (33:37.144)

That’s a guy I want. That’s a guy that I respect.

thinking that before you said that. I was like the sexiest thing to me, someone who is supportive and loving and there was nothing better than when my husband would step in and acknowledge and do things in a way that was respectful to everyone.

Say it like that then to your husband. Hey, the sexiest thing on earth is when I look outside and instead of yelling at our son, you’re playing catch. And he said, when I’m looking at you then, that’s the guy I married. That’s what I want. Because then we’re like, I can do that. It’s just saying like, we need to change our parenting is a little too vague.

They need actual steps, actual steps. Well, Kirk, this has been a fantastic conversation with so many actionable things that moms can take away from this. And I hope some dads are listening to and hear this conversation too. But we like to end every episode with something positive that’s happening in your life. So what are you looking forward to in your life right now?

You what? My son is organizing a father-son hiking trip this year for us. how fun! Awesome, where it’s just us. But yeah, I’m super excited. My grown son wants to spend time with me. That’s an awesome thing.

Speaker 2 (34:50.826)

that’s fun. We’re at

Speaker 2 (35:02.306)

Well, thank you so much, Kirk. We will talk to you later. Thank you. I have to go into a little squirrel here, because like here in No Guilt Mom, we have people who are in our No Guilt Mom community all across the country who really appreciate No Guilt Mom, who love the advice, who like follow it and have had huge transformations. But the people and friends in our personal lives have no idea what we do at all.

guys.

Speaker 2 (35:30.648)

keeps you grounded and it’s a great thing. Kirk Martin, he was shared on our mutual friend Sarah’s Instagram.

now Sarah’s gonna think like we’re big time. that’s like the thing I was thinking about during that I’m like, not one of my friends will know like what I do. It’s gonna be great.

Yeah, yeah, I say I tried that with my kids when we interviewed Tiffany Thiessen. Yeah.

I had no idea who she was. Well, like people who are rock stars in our field and it’s like the authors we talked to, like when we had Dr. Tina Payne-Brierson, obviously both of us were like, oh my god!

That was our first year. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:20.588)

Yeah, and Ned Johnson and Jess Leahy and like all of those people whose work like we just idolize and admire. And so it’s just one of the perks. It’s like looking inside, pulling back the curtain. When you start something like this and you’re like, like this success is going to make everyone around me think I’m awesome. I mean, I’m just being truthful here. It’s not the most admirable quality to have, but that’s what I think.

And it doesn’t happen that way, guys. one cares. Yes. So we hope you enjoyed our conversation with Kirk. I know I did. I had a lot of fun talking with him. And just remember, the best mom’s a happy mom. Take care of you. Talk to you later.

Thanks for stopping by.