In this video, we're going to be talking about the parent-child relationship and what makes
a really great parent-child relationship, and then talk about the key components that you'll
want to keep in mind to make sure that you are building a good relationship with your child.
The word relationship actually means to regard, to revere or to reverence someone and when you
think about that, it almost makes you think of some king or God or something. So when you have
a relationship with someone, you always protect them, meaning their identity when people talk
about them. So having a good relationship with your child means your child is going to protect
your name, you're going to protect their name, and you have a reverence for who they are. So often in
our relationships, we end up having problems when we forget who we are. Instead, we start thinking
about what we want other people to do for us, what we got, what we didn't get, what happened to us,
how we felt. But that is all beside the point of who we are. So who we are is so much more
significant because that also helps us know who the other people are that are around us. And so
if we can figure that out first, it makes a very big difference. So the number one thing that I
would have you consider as you're thinking about strengthening the relationship with your child is
what are your roles? Who are you, who are they? And I know that sounds very simplistic, but there
might be more to it than you've considered before. So years ago I wrote this book, Parenting A House
United, and it was designed to help parents learn the skills that they needed to improve the
relationships with their children. When I wrote this book, I thought people understood family
roles, and I was wrong because people kept asking me questions like, well, what if I tell my child
they need to do something but they won't, that they don't care, or something like that, or, my
child won't talk to me. And I thought to myself, well, that's a roles issue. Well, after years of
answering people's questions and recognizing they weren't understanding family roles, I wrote this
book, which is called Roles: The Secret to Family, business, and Social Success. This is a story
about roles. There's a family, their roles are not in the right place. There's a lot of selfishness.
The family's not on the same page about parenting. Husband or wife aren't even on the same page
about parenting. The children are wanting a lot more digital time than they should be having,
and that's healthy for the family relationships, and they don't know how to fix the problem.
And then you see them figure out what their roles are in the family and they fix everything. So I
highly recommend reading Roles and implementing the conversations that the parents have in this
book with your children so that you can improve the relationships with them by understanding who
each other really is. You also could read it as a family and just discuss as you go along.
My second piece of advice for you on creating a good relationship with your children is know
where you are going. So we've got know who you are now, know where you are going. So in my book,
Parenting A House United, and in my course, my TSG Parenting course, I talk about creating a family
vision. You can also create a personal vision or a vision based on just one relationship. But
visions are powerful. Visions are a picture of what you hope things will be in the future. If
you had your ideal world, what would the family be like 20 years in the future, 10 years
in the future, at a family holiday or family gathering that you know is going to happen every
single year? As you look ahead to that, then you say, okay, so what could get in the way of that?
How do we need to prepare ourselves so that we become this family? Now when everybody understands
the family vision, then they're all heading in a unified direction. It's really powerful. I know
some people maybe don't like the idea of planning for the future when you really can't control the
future, but let me tell you something. When you are planning for success, you have a higher chance
of actually getting that success and even if you don't hit the mark exactly on time, it still
gave you a very productive direction to head, and without that direction to head as a family, then
each person is going to be living in the moment all the time, and that creates more selfishness
and oftentimes more power struggling, which is bad for your relationships overall. I've got some more
suggestions for you on making sure that you have a great relationship with your child. But before
we get to those, click the subscribe button now. As you can see, there are a lot of components to
creating a really great relationship. There's no way I'm going to be able to get to all of
them in the detail I would like to here, but if you subscribe, you'll be able to see more videos
and that we'll help you. So we've got know who you are, know where you're going, and now know
how to problem solve. That's the third tip I have for you. Do you know how to problem solve in your
relationship? This can be difficult. In fact, children's prefrontal cortexes are developing
all the time, but are not fully developed until they hit about their mid twenties, which means
that there needs to be constant nourishment and nurturing on how to solve problems. There
is a key way that I teach my children how to solve problems, and this has helped our relationships a
ton. This particular skill or exercise that we do, it's a problem solving exercise and it's called
SODAS. So this book here, the SODAS Journal, is where we record the sodas exercises that we do.
So SODAS is an acronym that stands for Situation options, disadvantages, advantages and Solution
helps everybody see that there are advantages to making a wrong choice, as well as disadvantages
and disadvantages to making a right choice, which hmm might be why we didn't want to pick it in the
first place. This type of exercise helps a child be able to think outside of the box. We all have
emotional habits, and that makes us think that there are only certain options that we have and
we don't see our picture clearly. But if we work on problem solving enough, then we can put aside
that emotion and start looking with our prefrontal cortex and solve the problems more effectively. So
this is what the So does exercises are all about. Tip number four is to know how to communicate. So
how are you going to talk to each other? So say you know what the situation is, your options. You
know your disadvantages, you know your advantages, and you think you know a solution, but how are
you going to communicate that to somebody else who might have a different idea? Well,
there are certain skills of communication that can be very helpful. They maintain the roles and help
the person with their focus on the direction where they're headed for the vision, as well as help the
person solve their problems appropriately. So these skills are things that we teach in the
Teaching Self-Government course, the TSG Parenting course. So definitely look for that. There are
four basic skills that I teach for children. Those four basic skills are following instructions,
accepting "no" answers and criticism, accepting consequences, and disagreeing appropriately. I'd
like to talk just for a minute about disagreeing appropriately. If you want to have a really great
relationship with your children, you've got to listen to what they have to say and be open-minded
and have discussions regularly instead of just shutting them down all of the time. So learning
how to disagree appropriately is this wonderful skill where they learn how to be respectful,
but also share their point of view and have open discussions with you. There's seven steps
to the process, and it truly is the gateway skill to self-government. If a person learns
to disagree appropriately, they actually are purposely putting their brain activity in that
front brain so that they can better solve their problems. I've got a few more tips for you. One
of those is to discuss openly and often. If you want to have a good relationship with your child,
you have to have regular discussions, and that takes time. It actually takes deliberate planning.
You have to say, okay, when are we going to have regular discussions? Because if you think, oh,
I got to discuss with them more, sometimes you just don't get to it because everybody's so busy
all the time. But if you say to yourself, you know what? Every Sunday evening before bed,
we're going to have a 30 minute discussion, then it actually will happen. Schedule it in. Have some
time where you talk to them, listen to them, what they have to say, what they care about. Some of
the new things on the horizon, you advise them too, but don't overdo it. Just make sure that
they know you're there for them and that you want to have those open talks so that you are always
an open door to come to. My next tip for you is don't take things personally. I know that's easier
said than done, but when your child is having an attitude problem, they're talking back to you.
They're being disrespectful or complaining, something that wears you out emotionally,
you have to tell yourself, nope, I can't react emotionally to this. This person is learning
and growing. They're a child. They don't know how to communicate well. So what I need to do is help
them learn how to use that disagree appropriately skill right now, and not take it personally that
they seem disappointed in me or whatever it is. Remember your role. Remember who you are. Even
if they discourage you, they don't actually want you to forget who you are. They need you to be
who you are, or they can't be who they are. So it does come back to our identity. So make sure that
you have decided that you'll have a calm tone no matter what. Now, at the end of this video,
I'm going to give you a gift that will help with that calm tone. I hope so. Stay tuned for that.
Another tip I have for you is to really care about them. I know that seems silly to say,
but you do care, or you wouldn't be on this video watching it this long already if you
didn't care about your child. You want to have a good relationship with them, but sometimes they
don't really know because we don't express it well enough. You can say, I love you multiple
times a day, but for sure say it every day. If you can, let them know that what's going on in their
life. Ask them about things that they're involved in and that matter to them. Remember the things
they told you before and bring them up. Follow up on those conversations so they know you really
were listening. You really do care. Another thing that we do when we really care about our children
is when they're starting to spiral out of control or they're doing something that needs correction,
we actually take time to do those corrections, and we don't run away from it. We embrace it because
it's actually good for them. In fact, there's data that proves that if you let a person spiral down,
down, down and don't stop them, they go deeper each time, and it's actually really dangerous
where they can get to. It's much more loving, much more merciful, much more caring to do a correction
for a child, or to help them come to a place of calmness by doing some kind of an intensive
teaching with them to help them pull themselves out of that downward spiral that they might be
in. Be there for them. Don't give up on them. No matter what they say, what they do. Remember,
they're a child. They're still learning. It's not over yet. Always remember that even if they are
turning on you, are you ready for your free gift? Here's your free gift. So I have a Calm Parenting
toolkit. It's got 10 tools in it to help you better have better self-government over yourself
to improve that calm tone that we were talking about. It will also help you help your children
to be calm as well. So in the description below this video, there is a link to the Calm Parenting
Toolkit. It says, teachselfgov.com/toolkit. If you click on that link right now, it will take
you to the Calm Parenting Toolkit for free. So get the help you need. Get started now. It's a
great first step to learning self-government. There's more to come after that, I guarantee
that. But that will be a good place for you to start. So get that Calm Parenting toolkit today.