Hi, I'm Nicholeen Peck and I teach parenting and relationships, family bonding and development
all through the lens of self government. In this video, we're going to be talking about
parenting advice for teens.
In this video, I'm going to share a personal story from my
life doing foster care with troubled teens and then also, I have four bits of advice
for you that I think will really make a difference with you and your teens. Years ago when I
was a young mom, in fact, I only had two little children of my own, I had a three year old
and a one year old, we decided that we were going to take in teenagers. We were going
to do treatment, foster care for troubled teens that were between the ages of 12 and
18. So we usually always had two teens that were living at our house, at the same time,
as we were raising our own children, our own family, this was an amazing time for me. In
fact, I never knew what this would do to my life. Shortly after bringing in these teens
and helping them through a myriad of issues that I never knew even existed sometimes,
people started saying what's going on at your house, those teens are changing. They are
different now than they were when they first came. They came so hardened and tough and
seemed very disconnected and like they were into a lot of sketchy stuff. But now, they're
so different. Now, they seem to be bonded in with your family, they seem to be more
wholesome somehow and they communicate so well. They're so open, what happened, what
did you do to them, and I said, Well, I didn't do anything to them. But I did have a goal
in mind and my goal was to teach them what they needed to learn self government over
themselves. And so I created a type of environment where they could learn self government, and
where I could learn self government too. 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 that. So this meant that I had to teach these
teens that came to my home how to analyze themselves, I had to teach them whatever skills
they needed for good communication, so that they could catch themselves doing it the right
way or the wrong way because they were going to be learning cause and effect. I was essentially
preparing them for adulthood because I knew that even if some of them went back to their
homes, many of them would not get the proper training that they needed to become really
great productive and happy adults that didn't carry on problems from some of their upbringing
and abuse. So I decided I needed to give them something more structured, more deliberate,
more intentional. And that's what we did at our house. So let's talk about some of the
things that I taught the that can help you too. But before we get to the advice I have
for you today, click that subscribe button. There are so many videos on this channel,
about self government, and the skills and principles of self self government that can
change your hearts and the hearts of your children, you're not going to want to miss
those. Tip number one is focus more on the relationship than on making them behave. Here's
the thing, you can manipulate somebody to a certain degree, but they really aren't having
a change of heart. And when a person learns self government, it's because they are choosing
to have a change of heart, they are choosing to follow your instructions, accept your "no"
answers, accept corrections from you to be calm, when they communicate with you, they
are choosing those things, that means that they have to value who they are to you and
who you are to them,. There has to be a connection there, a very good relationship. Now I'll
tell you, when these youth came into my home, we had to start at the basic right, we didn't
have any relationship, I knew there might be a little honeymoon period where they would
be really good for a couple of days, and then all of a sudden fall into their old habits.
And so I basically felt like I have a couple of days to make a really good relationship
with this child that hopefully I can perpetuate. But there were a few children that came into
my home not wanting a relationship at all. In fact, they had decided that they were against
this whole process of foster care, and they didn't want to have anything to do with it.
So how did I touch their hearts? Well, you know what, I didn't try to make them be my
friend. In fact, I wasn't going for friendship, I decided instead that I would honor our roles.
I was going to have the role of parent and they were going to have the role of child
which meant that I was teacher, they were learner. So I was going to consistently no
matter what teach, and I was going to teach according to truth and principle, not just
my whims in the minute and what I wanted. That way they would see that I was a person
of integrity. And most people can respect someone with integrity, even if they don't
agree with them. And sure enough, it panned out. So we created good bonds with the children.
We talked to them like regular people, we helped them through their hardships without
getting emotional, taking things personally or being shocked. In fact, I told multiple
of the youth on many different occasions, there is nothing that you could do that would
shock, I promise you, there are hardly any behaviors at this point that I have not seen,
and even maybe done myself. So I will always be straight with you and whenever something
happens, let's just talk it out, and make sure we make a plan for our future. I'm not
going to spend my time being emotional with you, because that doesn't help you and it
doesn't help me. And when they could see I was that straightforward with them, they honored
me,. There was something about me, a strength that they actually wanted to have. So then
we started having a good relationship. So remember, the relationship is what holds all
the teaching together. If you go straight for corrections and straight for, you know,
punishments in hopes of doing teaching, without factoring in the relationship. In fact, sometimes
even parents destroy the relationship with their punishment, that you are not doing yourself
or that child the service, because probably whatever you teach will feel like a manipulation,
and it won't stick. Before I get to my next piece of advice, if you're liking this, then
definitely give it a thumbs up because that helps me get more people to see it here on
YouTube, hello. Also, if you don't want to miss other videos like this, then make sure
you click that notification bell so that you will get notified when I come up with new
things. Piece of advice number two is make sure that you pre-teach your children ahead
of time, the things that they need for success. Teach them the skills that they need to communicate
well with you. With all of my own children who are now raised and gone. As well as all
of my foster children, I taught them skills that they needed. 4 basic skills for success.
So I taught them how to follow instructions, which has five steps to it, how to accept
"no" answers and criticism, which has four steps to it, how to accept consequences, which
is vital if a person's gonna learn self government, otherwise, everything will just always be
your fault. And that has six steps to it, and then how to disagree appropriately, which
has seven steps to it. And that's their favorite because that helps them get their way from
time to time. So I taught them these skill sets, which actually took care of 99% of their
behavioral problems, and helped us have common language that we could use as we communicated
with each other. One of the biggest problems that parents have with their children that
they don't realize is especially when their children hit the teen years, they start taking
on new vocabulary to describe their feelings and their problems. And parents have a different
vocabulary that they used to use when they were young, or that maybe they use in the
adult world. They try to use that vocabulary with the child. And there is this breakdown.
The child feels they don't understand and the parent feels like they're not being understood
either. So we need to create common vocabulary just for those family relationships that will
maintain no matter what other kinds of vocabulary experiences we have at the office or at school.
Teach your children the skills that they need for success and that way your children will
be prepared to problem solve with you, instead of just react against you every time. Speaking
of skills that they need, and that you need, everyone needs a skill for how to get to a
place of calmness. So we have a rule in our family that I will not discuss an issue with
someone until we have gotten to a place of calmness. And it really just has to do with
biology and understanding chemistry within the body. So when a person becomes emotional,
they go to mid brain. When they become really emotional or angry, they go to back brain.
Now in midbrain, a person cannot process which is front brain activity very well. In fact,
probably maybe 40% of their front brain is actually working at the time, their mid brain
when they get the back brain that there's maybe 10% of front brain that's working. And
so that person cannot problem solve well, so why would I spend my time trying to problem
solve with a person who's irrational, that doesn't help them actually solve their problem
and it certainly doesn't help me. It just leads to more power struggle. And I don't
want to have that happen. So I have a plan for how to help a person get to calmness if
they get to that place where they're starting to go out of control. In fact, that way that
I do that is with something called the rule of three. The rule of three is basically a
series of three things that I do three times. The child knows every word I'm going to say
and I know every word I'm going to say so there's no manipulation, there's no power
struggling, I just use the skill to help them get to a place of calmness. The whole point
of the rule of three is to point a person toward calmness so that then everyone can
get calm and be understood. Making sure your child understands calmness and understands
how to get to a place of calmness are going to be key things that help you in your relationship
with them and in all of the teachers thing that you really need to do as a parent. Piece
of advice number four is you've got to have time to check up on your relationship. If
there is one thing that happens in the teen world is we get disconnected. The teens are
off doing their things, they're starting to pursue sports and talents. And they're in
plays, and they've got a heavier workload at school, and they're preparing for college
and they're going on dates sometimes, and all these things that happen, you know, when
someone is in that time of life, and we get busy to thinking they don't need us as much,
we start taking on more on our plates, too. It's really important that we have deliberate
times that we come together and have really good, open communication with each other.
I think people get disconnected and once they get disconnected the teen things, they're
hiding things in their life that mom and dad don't know about. And then the walls start
coming up. We don't want walls so we've got to make sure that conversation is a mainstay
in our relationship. So in our family, we have different meetings that we have every
single week to maintain that good open communication as a full family, but also individually with
our children. A couple of the meetings that we have that affect the children are we have
the family meeting, and this is the time where they get to invest in who the family is, as
a whole. This is really beneficial for them, so that they can take ownership over their
relationships with each other as well as with you. Then we also have the mentor meeting.
So the mentor meeting is a weekly meeting that is one on one with the child where the
parents are talking to the child, helping them set goals for their relationships, but
also for their academics and their other pursuits that they have, maybe some social things that
they're hoping to improve or physical things about themselves. Parents are taking an active
role in helping the child become the best version of themselves as they're preparing
for adulthood. These meetings are going to be things that actually even as your children
hit adulthood, they will want to kind of revisit with you. Even if they're not official meetings,
they'll just crave to have these open talk times where they get to tell you about things
that are deciding for their lives, goals they're setting or problems that they might be having.
These meetings lay a foundation for them to get help and bonding from you for the rest
of their lives. That was a lot of advice related just to teens, but I have more parenting advice
that I think you'll find valuable. If you would like to learn more parenting advice
For me there is a video called The Best Parenting Advice I received and I highly recommend checking
out that video now so that you can improve your relationships even more with your children.