Hi! I'm Nicholeen Peck and I am a parenting expert but probably one of the things I'm known for the
very most is my calmness. I was in BBC documentary years ago called The World's Strictest Parent
and people said in the comments of that particular program,
"These guys shouldn't be called the world's strictest parents. They should be called the
world's calmest parents or the world's best parents." It was super nice of people to say.
But what they were noticing was our calmness that it was different than
every other episode that they saw. And after that, people started asking me to teach how is it
that I stay calm as I travel throughout the world teaching people about parenting. We're
going to have a great conversation about parenting because this is the key to calm parenting.
Before I explain to you the key of calm parenting, I want to share a story with you about a woman
who told me what this key had done for her. For years, I've been teaching a presentation called
the Power of Calm. It's by far my most popular class that I teach when I'm invited to go to
conferences and other speaking events. Because people really want to know how do I get that
type of power? Because indeed, it is a power when a person has real calmness, they're unaffected.
Truly, truly unaffected by chaos around them. They can think clearly even when there is chaos going
on. When people are crying and screaming, when somebody is yelling in their face they can say,
"Oh, wait a second. What's happening here? Who am I in this situation and how can I help solve
the problem?" They stay completely logical. So, this woman came to me at one of these conferences
as I was giving the presentation The Power of Calm. And she said to me, "Nicholeen,
I have to report to you." Now, I didn't even know who she was. And so, certainly,
I wasn't thinking she was going to come report to me. But she felt like she needed to. She said
"I was at a conference that you were at a year ago and you gave this presentation on the Power
of Calm." She said, "And I bought that audio track, and I listened to it every single week
for an entire year. Because even though I don't look like it, I was a monster
mom. And I knew I couldn't stay like that. She said, "I listened to it and I listened to it.
And I worked on your whole program. And I want you to know that after a year I can finally say
I'm calm." And I was so thrilled. Because choosing to be calm is a one-second choice but
it's a choice you have to make again and again and again and again because each new situation means
making that choice again. It means choosing not to be stressed, not to be anxious, not to allow
yourself to get emotionally attached again and again and again. It takes practice. Someone isn't
perfect at calmness straight out of the chute. Just because you watch this video doesn't mean
that you will be perfect at calmness. But I am going to share with you what this one key is that
she really needed. And then I'm going to give you some other bonus information as part of this key
so that you can start mastering calmness within yourself. So, what is the one key? The one key is
stay in the logical part of your brain. Not the emotional part of your brain. If you understand
how your brain works, then you know that there are certain parts of your brain that fuel emotion. And
there are certain parts of your brain that do your problem solving or your logical reasoning for you.
The prefrontal cortex part of your brain does all of your logical processing. It rationalizes,
it sorts and analyzes. It performs vital function in solving your problems and in
keeping you calm. So, if you find yourself emotional, you stop yourself instantly
and you say, "Wait, I'm in the emotional part of my brain. I cannot stay in this part of my brain."
Because if you do, you'll go further and further back in your brain and it will be more difficult
for you to get to that front part of your brain. The further back you go, the more emotional you
get. So, you stop yourself and you say, "Go to the logical." You tell yourself, "Go to the logical.
Think Nicholeen. Think." And so, when you stop and you tell yourself to think,
then you breathe. You allow yourself a moment to think. Then you start describing what you see.
Then you can think. So, you say to yourself, "This is what I'm seeing. I'm seeing this person with
their eyes narrowed right now. And they're yelling at me and telling me that I don't care about them
and that I don't understand. What they don't understand is that I do want to understand
them. I want to talk with them. I want to help them find peace and happiness." But I know that
they also won't find peace and happiness if they are in what part of the brain? The emotional part
of the brain. So, we've got to take them also to the logical part of the brain. There is a
way that I do that. I have skills for helping another person get to that part of the brain.
In fact, below this video, there is a link to something called the Calm Parenting Toolkit.
I'm going to give that to you for free. It is a free tool kit that you can use to learn
some of those skills that you need to not only keep yourself calm in the minute but to help
other people choose to be calm in the minute so that then you both can sort out the problem. So,
long as one person remains in the emotional part of the brain, the problem will not be completely
solved. But if you can tell yourself, "Stop. Go to logical." And then when you're in logical,
you have a skill set prepared to help them stop and go to logical." Then soon in no time,
you can be having a good conversation. You can be focusing on understanding each other on principles
and on solving an actual problem that probably isn't as big of a deal as your emotions made it
initially. So, once we describe the situation to ourselves and we get ourselves to that front part
of the brain, then we need to know exactly what to say. That means we need a script. So, I have
two different scripts that I use when a person is completely out of control. I also have another
script that I use just when I need to basically correct something. So, sometimes we don't go out
of control until somebody else pulls us into a power struggle. Sometimes, we start going
out of control just when we see something going wrong or something we don't like. I want you to
question within yourself what type of person are you? Do you get emotionally attached to something
instantly? Do you take something personally and all of a sudden allow yourself to feel emotion?
Well, if that's the case, then you need to master how to do a calm effective correction.
This is a 7 step process that I've taught myself. I even wrote down the exact steps, the exact words
that I would say so, that when I was working with my foster children and my own 4 children,
that I would make sure I stuck to it every time. I had to form a new habit. I had to have new words
so that the first words that popped in my head which were "What are you thinking",
did not come out of my mouth. You know you've got something that pops into your head first
thing. You're a robot. You've already put that in there, you've programmed yourself. So now, choose
to reprogram yourself think of something else to say. The thing that I choose to say at the very
beginning which reminds me I'm going to describe instead of react is I say, "Just now". So, I say,
"Just now, I gave you an instruction and you looked at me but you didn't keep a calm face,
voice, and body. You didn't say okay or ask to disagree appropriately. You didn't do the task
immediately or check back. So, I can see that you are choosing not to follow instructions." Then
I go on with another description of why this is not a good thing. And then a description of what
they should have done. And then a description of what they've earned and then we practice it the
right way. This is how I correct problems. Now, if they go completely out of control,
meaning they're fighting with me arguing with me, whining, complaining, they're not going
to accept a consequence which is one of those basic skills that we teach children to do. If
they don't know that skill or they're not going to do it, then we need something for more intensive
teaching moments. And I can't discuss that here because that would take too much of our time.
But you can get it in the Calm Parenting Toolkit. So, go below this video in the description section
and click the link that says calm parenting toolkit. It's completely free. Go get the
calmness help that you need. Get involved with the self-government movement. Because
parents all over the world are choosing to control themselves now. They're saying, "Wait a minute,
this out of control behavior that we're promoting in our society has gone far enough." It is time
that people truly be in control of themselves. It starts in your own heart, in your own mind,
and in your own home. Get the calm parenting toolkit. Share this video with other people.
And if you liked it, subscribe so you don't miss the other ones that I come out with every day.