Hi, I'm Nicholeen Peck and I teach all about parenting, good communication and
family relationships all over the world through the lens of self-government and
in this video I'm going to be talking about the relationship pyramid that solves family problems.
In this video I'm going to be telling you a story about how the relationship pyramid changed my life
and then I'm going to be explaining in detail the relationship pyramid and how you can use it
to strengthen your family as well. Years ago when I was doing foster care, I came across this article
written by somebody from the Arbinger institute. I forget his name so I apologize for not giving
proper credit. It's probably printed in a file somewhere in my house. Anyway in this particular
article, the author was talking about this relationship pyramid and I realized the moment I
saw this article and this pyramid that that was exactly what I needed. I was working on some very
difficult behaviors with the foster children that I was taking into my home at the time and my own
toddlers were having tantrums of their own and I was doing my best to teach them the skills they
needed and to try to focus on being calm but I have to say I still was focusing a little bit
too much on the problem that needed to be solved and not all of the underlying proactive things
that I should have had in place before I even attempted to solve the problem in the first place.
So, I decided to apply this relationship pyramid to my life and it changed my parenting for good.
So, this is the relationship pyramid and I've added a couple of modifications. So, at the very top of
the pyramid here, this is the part where you want to correct the problem or the troubling behavior.
So, before we can correct negative behavior, we have to make sure that we have done
the appropriate teaching. So, we have to teach the positive behavior first otherwise,
when you're correcting a negative behavior, you're just telling someone that something
they did bothered you. There's really no right or wrong there. Always teaching needs to be done
ahead of time. This was a key piece to changing the way that I did things with my parenting.
In fact with the foster care agency I worked for, they put a lot of emphasis in on pre-teaching
the youth that were going to come to my home exactly what skills they needed
and how I would handle it every single time but, I didn't realize that that teaching was going to be
more comprehensive than just skills and how I would correct them but there were going to be
everything that I would teach. Before I correct a person for having bad breath or not brushing
their teeth, I need to be sure I teach them how to brush the teeth. Before I say how come you
didn't do that chore correctly, I need to make sure I spent time doing the chore with them
and doing that proper pre-teaching on everything. Before any teaching is going to stick
then I have to have a good relationship with my child. If our hearts are not united with each other,
then that teaching is not going to mean as much. In fact it could fall on rocky ground. So, we have
to make sure that the relationship is in the right place when the teaching or before the teaching is
happening. Now, this was the part that really made a difference to me, this next part. But before I get
to this next part, click that subscribe button. You are not going to want to miss the videos on this
channel that can strengthen your hearts and your family relationships. Click the subscribe now and
don't forget that notification bell so that you will hear when the new videos come out. Okay so
this is the part that changed me, right here. If I'm going to have a good relationship with my child
then I need to have a good relationship with my spouse. You may not think that those two things
are connected but they are and this was the bit that just blew my mind. I went oh my goodness,
that's so true because if I have contention with my spouse or if we're not communicating well,
if we're not on the same page in our love relationship
then this creates friction, sometimes even manipulation in the relationship with the child.
The child does not feel like everything is right if mom and dad are not right.
So now I know what a lot of people are thinking oh great, I'm in a divorce situation. What do I do
because I definitely don't get along with my spouse otherwise we would have stayed together.
You've got to come to peace with that new situation. You've got to make sure
that you do not maintain a hard heart toward that spouse, you've got to try to have the
best communication possible even if they're a narcissist and it seems like it's impossible.
You've got to do the very best and show the child that you are not holding on to bad here
because it is going to make a difference in this relationship and if you've been in
a divorce situation or you've witnessed a divorce situation and you see how the child is pulled back
and forth and back and forth and how the child's allegiance shifts all the time, it is truly because
the relationship with the spouse is not where it needs to be. So, this is foundational for creating
a good, strong, long-lasting relationship with the child. That doesn't mean that you can't have a good
relationship with a child if you're in a divorce situation, you absolutely can but it's going to
take some deliberate work and some heart softening of your own. Now, this is the part I've added myself.
So, in order to have a good relationship with your spouse, you need to have a good relationship
with yourself. This means that you need to think positively about yourself. You need to motivate
yourself, you need to govern yourself. Give yourself instructions, give yourself "no" answers, follow up on
your plans and goals with yourself. You need to make sure that you do not give yourself excuses
or beat yourself up because this is going to hurt your relationship with spouse and child. When you
start beating yourself up or giving yourself excuses, you become entitled and oftentimes very
selfish. If you do not keep yourself humble and teachable and acknowledge the good things about
yourself with a feeling of gratitude, then you will not have a good relationship with spouse.
Your spouse will not be grateful for you if you're not even grateful for yourself.
In order to create a good relationship with yourself, you actually have to have one more
relationship in place and this is the foundation of it all, that is having a good relationship with
truth or you can say with God, the author of truth. Having a good relationship with God and with truth
will change your relationship with yourself. Just like when I saw this pyramid, I was totally changed.
I realized I was being selfish in my relationship with my spouse but I was trying to have good
relationships with my children. In order to not be selfish in my relationship with my spouse , I
had to take a close look at me and decide where I was being selfish and do you know how I was going
to fix that? By examining the truth that I should hold on to in all of my relationships. I knew I
needed to be humble and teachable. I needed to acknowledge the fault that I had in every one of
the communications that went wrong with my spouse. All of this to fix a child's negative behavior,
all of this. Now some people might get disheartened about this. You don't have to have it perfect,
you just have to know it exists. Okay so if you understand that to correct a negative behavior,
you've got to do teaching. If you understand that the relationships all need to be in order
and you need to be founded on truth, not manipulation, if you understand all of that then
you can pull it together bit by bit so that it is always ready for those corrections when they come
and the praises too because up here at the top is also the praises. Okay, right up here at the top,
praise. Praise, praise, praise and actually praise strengthens relationships. So, this pyramid should
change all of your interactions. This doesn't mean we don't do correction but we get ourself aligned
with truth, not manipulation first, we make sure that we see ourselves as the parent handling the
situation the best way. We can we make sure that we don't have any things with the spouse that are not
resolved or taken care of within our own hearts and then we make sure that we are looking at the
child, bonding the child, thinking the very best of the child and that we've done the teaching and
if we haven't done the teaching yet and there's just something that needs fixing then guess what?
Instead of going straight to fixing, you acknowledge something happened that I think was
a mistake but we need to do some teaching about it. The first time a mistake is ever made. you teach.
The second time and there on after, you correct and remind them of the teaching.
So, this teaching is so important. This relationship pyramid
should give you additional strength and focus so that you don't hyper focus on
what bugged you or what needs to be corrected. The worst interactions, the worst corrections
start when too much emotion is invested in the correction and not enough investment has been
made in the relationships and the principles that are governing that correction in the first place.
You see how foundational it is that you have a truth focus, that there are principles that you
are following so that you can align yourself and all of your teachings and your relationships with
those truths and principles. There is one principle that is vital for being a self-governed person and
for having self-government in your relationships and that one principle is calmness. I would like to
give you my calm parenting toolkit for free to help you more develop that base of your
relationship pyramid so that you can strengthen yourself and your relationships with everyone
around you. The calm parenting toolkit is free if you click the link in the description below
this video that says teachselfgov.com/toolkit. Click on that link now and I will see you there.