Hi, I'm Nicholeen Peck. I teach parenting, family communication, all through the lens
of self-government. And in this video, we're talking about 10 things every parent must know.
In this video, I'm going to share with you a quick list of 10 things. I wish there was only 10. But
be sure to get more information at the end of this video. I've got something free for you
that will definitely help you have even more than 10 things that you can do. Number 10, plan where
the family is going. So, if you want your family to all be united going in the same direction then
you've absolutely got to make a deliberate plan. I call this having a family vision. So, this is a
picture like 10 or 20 years in the future of maybe a family holiday or an event. Maybe your family
goes camping or to a certain vacation spot every year. Something that you are going to for sure do
every year so that you can have practice time for this vision in the future that will explain not
just where you're at and what's happening there but who you are to each other when you're there.
That's important. This gives the family something to hold on to as they're creating
their family bonds throughout the years. Be sure to check out other videos on this channel
for creating a family vision because they are there to help you already. Number 9,
teach children how to follow instructions. If your children don't follow your instructions,
then you actually can't parent them. So, this is a deliberate skill that we need to teach
our children. And I think many people think the children should just automatically be obedient.
But without teaching someone the law then a person that makes a bad choice isn't really disobedient.
They just didn't know better necessarily. So, make sure that you teach them the skills. One skill,
that following instruction skill is going to be one that you will use every single day. The
steps to following instructions are to look at the person; keep a calm face, voice, and body;
say "okay" or ask to disagree appropriately; do a task immediately, and then check back. And this
is a great thing because then you can tell them what a good job they did when they check back
to you. Number 8, understand family roles. Your family each has different roles within the family
to each other. So there's the role of mother, the role of father, the role of older brother,
the role of baby sister, the role of 1- year-old daughter. There are so many different roles that
exist within the family. We need to make sure we understand what those really mean. What does it
mean to be a father in the lives of your children? They've done so much research now on the effects
of children being raised knowing both of their parents and having good connections with both
of their parents. That right there suggests that there is something that is within the role
structure with mother, father, child that is vital for proper development. In fact, children who have
a bond with both of their parents definitely they stay out of drugs more; they do better in
their careers; they're oftentimes highly educated; they stay away from all kinds of risky behaviors
by and large. This isn't across the board of course because everyone's situation is slightly
different. But that is a determining factor when you are studying how young people turn out. So,
think of that we need to know who we are to them and we need to magnify that. What does it mean to
be a father? To be a provider, a protector. What does it mean to be a mother to nurture children?
To hold their hearts in your hand? What does that mean? And how should
we live differently because of that? I do have a book all about that called Roles:
The Secret To Family Business and Social Success where you can get more information there.
Number 7, teach your children to accept "no" answers. Life is full of no answers or moments
where there are boundary lines that shouldn't be crossed. Those are all "no" answers. So,
sometimes we hear "no" from somebody. Sometimes we just know it was a "no" because we wanted
something but we didn't get our way. That's still a "no" answer. And those things can feel hard,
kind of like criticism. So the same skill for accepting a no answer has the exact same steps
as the skill accepting criticism. aAd those are to look at the person keep it calm face, voice, and
body; say "okay" or ask to disagree appropriately, and then drop the subject. Now, I want you to ask
yourself. Can you drop the subject when something bad happens to you? You don't get your way? A day
doesn't go right? You get in a car accident or you run out of gas? Or you can't find your keys?
Can you accept a "no" answer? Or do you start getting stressed and taking it personally too?
Because we all need these skills? They aren't just for children, they're for adults too. So,
we're going to teach our children all 4 of those steps to the skill accepting "no" answers
and criticism. Before I get to my next tips, click that subscribe button. You are not going to want
to miss all the videos that come out all the time on this channel. And don't forget to also tap the
notification bell because then you will actually be notified when something new occurs. And I
don't want you to miss out. Number 6 is teaching children how to accept consequences. So, a person
cannot learn self-government unless they get the opportunity to accept their own consequences.
You actually have to teach your child how to do this. It's a skill for life. There are many
natural and synthetic consequences in our life. So, a speeding ticket is a synthetic consequence.
A natural consequence is something like "I didn't go out and pull the weeds in my yard, so now,
they have taken over and killed my plants." That's a natural consequence. Our children
need to know how to accept consequences so that they can adjust and deal with the disappointments
that come in life and learn cause and effect so that they make better plans for their future. So,
teaching that skill set is also super important. There are 6 steps to the skill accepting a
consequence. Number 5, disagreeing appropriately. So, disagreeing appropriately is a skill that
really goes the distance. In fact, I wish that more adults knew how to disagree appropriately.
Have you seen how people do crazy things like riot and they talk rudely to each other online.
These are all people that do not understand the skill disagreeing appropriately. This is a skill
that is best taught by example but also learning the steps that are associated with the skill.
There are 7 steps associated with the still the skill disagreeing appropriately.
And they all lead toward a person learning how to be calm and in control of themselves,
seeking to understand another person than knowing how to be understood with a good calm voice tone.
And if they don't get their way, being able to accept the "no" answer and drop
the subject. Learning to disagree appropriately is a maturing skill. It's actually the gateway
skill to self-government because it disengages the emotional and engages the prefrontal cortex
so that a person experiences that empowerment that comes with expressing themselves and being
understood even if they don't get their way every single time. Number 4, meet together as a family
often. So, in our family, we have three different meetings that we have on a regular basis. So,
we have couples meetings, this is where me and my husband get together and we discuss what's going
on with the family; what our needs are as a couple and maybe some of our scheduling or agenda things
that we need to discuss with each other. Then we have a second meeting which is our family meeting.
This is the time where the entire family gets together and we discuss what's happening
in our home culture. How we can make improvements; what our family schedule is looking like;
exciting things or maybe things that we want to take on as a family project.
These are important times where everyone has a voice and so everyone gets the opportunity to take
ownership over their own behaviors and over what's happening in the family. The third type of meeting
that we have is the mentor session. The mentor session happens one-on-one with parent and child
or maybe 2 parents and one child and we talk about what that child has up coming that week,
how we can help them what goals they're setting in the different areas of their lives like academic
spiritual physical and as well as social goals. So, we might even be helping them
improve relationships with their friends and within the social dynamic of the family as well.
If they have any concerns or worries, they talk to us about those things at that time as well.
These are great times these meetings to check up on how we're doing with our self-government,
our bonding, and just how we can improve our family as a whole. Number 3, know the parenting
styles that are the most effective. I hope you know that there are certain ways to parent the
lead toward power struggle. And then there are certain ways that lead toward good teaching and
assertive communication. I have multiple videos on this channel that talk about the different styles
of parenting. I would highly recommend looking into some of those things. There are basically
3 styles of parenting. So, there's modern progressive parenting or permissive parenting.
Bully fear-based parenting which is more of your aggressive authoritarian type parenting. Then
there's also traditional strict parenting which is your assertive planned principled parenting.
These 3 sometimes people interchange with all the time. They'll jump back and forth
because they're not knowing how to stay assertive all the time because they don't have the skills.
Well, I actually do have the skills. There are five different teaching styles
that I use in my parenting. I have the effective praise, the 3 different types of pre-teaching,
corrective teaching which is a positive process of correcting that leads the parent and child closer
together instead of feeling like they're breaking apart when it's time to correct something.
Then also, intensive teaching. This is for when a person goes completely out of control and they
need help coming back to calmness. And then the fifth style is the parent counseling session. So,
I have all five of these things at my disposal at any given minute that I can use to help my
child however they might need during that time. My children also know all the steps to these skills
so they're prepared for any communication from me and they don't feel any anxiety if I need
to correct them or help them come to a place of calmness. And when I say any anxiety, what I mean
is once they've been trained and they understand how it goes, they don't experience anxiety. But
with my foster children, when I would get a new one, we would train them on it but they would
still try to power struggle a little bit and have some anxiety until they understood how it would
really work to help them. Number 2, things like phones and media and friends, and school things,
activities interest --these are all kinds of things that can distract from the family. And so,
we've got to make sure that we keep them in proper perspective. Which means we need to have a way as
a family that we have designed to handle these things that can control us. So, I always tell
my children that these devices, they can control you unless you know how to control yourself and
you are fully prepared to do it. So, I don't allow my children to have devices like that especially
the really smart ones. Unless.... And I mean the smart devices, not the smart children. But I don't
let them have like smart phones unless that child is really good at self-governing themselves. So,
they understand what's right and wrong, good and bad, true and false. And they are consistently
choosing right good and true because they want to not just because they have to. So, they would have
a certain condition of heart. So, in our family, we have something called a family standard.
This family standard is a list that our family has of things that we will do and won't do and how we
will handle certain things like media and digital devices and social time and all of those things
that are important to us as people because we want to make sure we excel in all areas but also could
get in the way of having our family run, well, and keeping that unity and bond within the family.
The family needs a certain amount of time. You've got to make sure that you set it aside and don't
let other things get in the way of your family relationships because those family relationships
lay the foundation for everything else. Number 1, understand calmness and really exemplify it.
You need to know how to be calm in your parenting. When something's going wrong, when there's chaos,
do you trust yourself to be calm in those moments? If many people are honest, there's a lot of them
that say, "No, I don't have that skill. My parents didn't show me that skill. So, I don't really know
how to be calm. I don't like losing control. I don't like the stress. I don't like the power
struggle. I don't like how it feels. But I don't know what else to do." Well, you need a plan for
what else to do. In fact, when I took in treatment foster children and when my children were little,
I realized there were some days that were pretty crazy and I didn't want to be that
person that lost control of myself on those days. I wanted to be able to be there for my family. So,
I developed my own calm plan. And I would like to share some of that with you. Since you've
stayed to the end of this video, I would like to give you a free access to my calm parenting
toolkit. If you click the link directly below this video that says teachselfgov.com/toolkit,
you will get access to the Calm Parenting Toolkit completely free. This is 10 lessons that will help
you develop more calmness and prepare to teach your children calmness as well. This is just
the starting path to a life of self-government but it's a great first step. I'll see you there.