Hi! I'm Nicholeen Peck and I am a self-government expert. I've been
traveling the world now for years teaching people how to have self-government in their families
and in a lot of other things too. So, today in this video,
we're going to be talking about what does self-government look like as a child.
In this video, we're going to talk about what self-government is, what parents want from
self-government, how to teach self-government to a child and what self-government success looks like.
So, what is self-government? Self-government is being able to determine the cause and effect of
any given situation and possessing a knowledge of your own behaviors so that you can control them.
So, what that means is that you understand cause and effect. Now, I know that seems
really basic but I work with a lot of families and i've worked with a lot of children and I can
tell you that many of them don't understand cause and effect when it relates to their relationships.
Parents don't realize that when they yell at their children, the children do not feel
safe. Children don't realize that when they don't follow instructions from their parents,
the parents don't trust them. Very interesting. These are all cause and effect situations that
affect our relationships. So, when a person learns cause and effect, they're
on the path to self-government. But there is a second part. The second part of self-government
is possessing a knowledge of your own behaviors so that you can control them. So, what does that
look like for a child? Can a child really analyze themselves and control all of their own behaviors?
Did you know that the answer is yes? That doesn't mean they're going to be perfect every time. And
even though their prefrontal cortexes in their brains are very small. They can learn cause and
effect and they can learn to analyze themselves. It's very interesting to see time and time again
2 and 3-year-old children learning to disagree appropriately with their parents
learning to shut off their emotions immediately. When my son was 3 years old, we had a calm down
place for him to go to when he was completely out of control. And I would just say to him,
"Porter, you're whining. We need to go to the calm down place." Before we even took two steps to the
calm down place, porter would go, 'I'm okay, mom. I'm calm." He could get himself calm that quickly
because he knew what calmness felt like and what it didn't feel like. And because I spent most
of the time describing his behavior to him and I never reacted to his behavior in emotional ways,
he was able to have that freedom of analyzing himself even more. Because I would just describe
what he should be seeing. Sure, they're not perfect at it at first but we can teach it
to them. And that's what self-government looks like for a child. It looks like them learning the
process of self-analysis and cause and effect. So, they've got to be taught it. It's not something
they just automatically learn. Parents have to be the example of self-government and they
have to be non-emotional and respond to their children in ways that help them see and analyze
what should be happening versus what did happen. And then they need to learn skills that they can
use to conquer themselves in those situations. So, that's what we do. We teach the children skills.
So, how does that help the parents? Well, what the parents want is they want their child to be happy,
don't they? But they also want their child to not be in bondage to all of the emotions
and the misbehaviors. They want to have a bond and connection with their children. They want to
feel like they work well with them and that they have good open understanding communication. Well,
all of this is possible when a person learns self mastery. When they learn skills like following
instructions and accepting no answers, accepting consequences and disagreeing appropriately.
They learn how to look at a person, to keep calm faces voices and body. They learn how to drop the
subject so that they can move on and be happy in their day. Which impacts the entire family.
They learn how to share their point of view and to understand other people's point of view.
They learn so many vital lessons that helps them find the success and happiness that is possible,
in fact, only possible when you are in complete control of yourself and your happiness. We're
really getting into some good nuts and bolts about what self-government is, what it's going to look
like in your home. I have so many videos on this channel that will show you more and more of how
to implement self-government in your home and what some of the philosophies and principles and skills
are. If you want to learn more and be able to hear all my latest videos when they come out,
then click that subscribe button. Because you don't want to miss out. Alright, let's move on now
to how to teach self-government to children. So, how do you teach self-government to a child? Well,
you do it very proactively, very deliberately. It's not something that accidentally happens. When
a parent wants their child to have that freedom that comes from knowing how to master themselves,
they've got to help the child see what's really going on within themselves and in
the environment around them. So, this means there's a lot of talking that happens. Now,
not lecturing. Lecturing is totally different than teaching somebody a skill or helping them
analyze. Those can be very short conversations. So, what you do is you talk about what's going
on around you and what should be happening to make it more successful. When your children are
little, you're going to start teaching them things like how to follow instructions how to say okay
and how to be calm and be okay. So, those 4 basic skills --following instructions,
accepting no answers and criticism, accepting consequences and disagreeing appropriately
have skill sets attached to them. And you're going to want to work on those
and train those ahead of time. You're also going to want to nurture your relationship
and help create a path for where you're going as a family. Not just as an individual. This
self-government journey, even though it requires each heart going through a change of heart
is actually about your entire group. You can't just teach one person's self-government and not
have it impact the whole rest of the group. That's why it's so important that mom and dad learn
self-government too. In fact, that's probably one of the biggest factors in teaching your children
self-government is that you take the time to apply the self-government principles and skills
to your own life as well. Not only are you going to teach the children the 4 basic skills but there
are 5 teaching styles that I teach to parents for how to correct problems. And there's meetings
that we have so that the family checks up on how they're doing at accomplishing that family plan
which I often call a family vision that they're shooting for for the future. So, there's some
groundwork that has to be laid. It can maybe seem a little overwhelming to some people. But just
do one thing at a time. In fact, I have a course it's called the Teaching Self-Government Parenting
course. And it takes you step by step through the process of putting all these things into place.
So, that you can get off to the perfect start. So, the parents know these five teaching styles. Well,
they're not the only ones that need to know the teaching styles. The children need to know exactly
how you will correct them. I'm talking they should know the words you will say. Now, I know
that seems a little weird like, "Well, I don't even know the words that I'm going to say." Well,
actually, I was saying that thinking maybe you might be thinking that. I do know the words I'm
going to say. Every single time that I need to correct my children, the same words will
come out of my mouth. And they know it. They are predictable. They don't need to have any anxiety
attached to what consequences will happen or what words will be said. There's not going to be any
emotional things that are going to be dumping out of my mouth because I've planned it and I have
found calmness within myself which is actually the hallmark of a person who's self-governed. So,
what does success look like when your child is self-governed? The biggest indicator that your
child is having great self-government success is their calmness. Their calmness should improve
bit by bit over time. In fact, many families find that when they are learning self-government as a
family, the calmness is one of the things that drastically changes almost immediately. That
doesn't mean you get perfect at your calmness immediately. But when you start focusing on it,
it's amazing how many of those little fights and disputes just kind of go away. Also when we have
skills where we know how to solve our problems and we know how to communicate together, we are able
to just maintain calm because we know everyone's going to come to a place of understanding. Now,
sometimes calmness can be difficult. In fact, calmness is so important to self-government,
I actually have created an entire toolkit just for calmness. And I want to give it to you for free.
So, if you go to the description below this video, you'll see a link that says Calm
Parenting Toolkit. Click on that link. It's completely free for you. I know that you're
going to enjoy it. It's going to benefit you along your self-government journey. Get that gift today.