Welcome back. I'm Nicholeen Peck, I teach parenting and good communication all over
the world through the lens of the principal self government. This is part six of a six part series
called gentle parenting that actually stops bad behaviors. And in this video,
we are talking about creating emotionally strong children.
In this video, we're going to talk about emotions and what it means to be emotionally strong. And
then what key components go into setting up an environment where children can be nurtured to
become emotionally strong. So let's talk about emotions. I mean, what is all the talk about
emotions nowadays? It's everywhere. Emotions are everything, all of the characters,
the heroes in the show, they're all emotionally out of control. Now, have you noticed that? They
didn't used to be. The heroes used to be calm and collected? Right? Think the old Captain America,
right. And then suddenly, all of the characters became emotional messes, right? And I'm not
talking just about Marvel, but I'm talking about all kinds of movies, and even books that we read,
where people are trying to bring another dimension to the characters. And so they bring up all of
the emotional minutia that a person might go through. Now, I'm not saying that all emotions
are not valuable, because they are, and we've got to be able to talk about them. In fact,
that is one thing that really does create a good, emotionally strong person is if they can discuss
their emotions. But if they're just venting their emotions, if they're just dumping their emotions,
especially non productive emotion, emotions, on other people, what does that really do for
them? Well, actually, it puts them in a position of emotional bondage. So I believe that we can
learn skills to understand emotions, communicate emotions effectively, and find emotional freedom.
But I don't think that a lot of the common philosophers of the day when it comes to emotions
are nailing it. In fact, I think that some people are being misled. Even some of the programs for
social and emotional strength that are being done in schools are actually teaching children
to be emotionally entitled, and end up embracing emotional bondage instead of emotional freedom.
So emotional freedom isn't total emotional abandonment, where you just like, let it out,
left and right. Emotional freedom is when you understand what's going on inside yourself,
when you can articulate it, when you can share it with another person, when you can make plans
to have productive emotions instead of non productive emotions. Now, when a parent is
truly practicing gentle parenting, they are aware of their child's emotions, and they are hopefully
trying to help them navigate those emotions, instead of just give in to those emotions. There
is a difference. So the title of this whole series was gentle parenting that actually takes care of
bad behaviors, corrects bad behaviors, right? That actually does. Because there are forms of gentle
parenting that don't correct bad behaviors, they just enable the bad behaviors again,
and again, by feeding too much energy into the emotions. I decided a long time ago when I was
a treatment foster parent for troubled teens, that I wanted to help those teens who were struggling
so much with emotional bondage, find emotional freedom, and that for my own biological children,
I wanted them to be raised in a way where they could be emotionally strong, because I knew that
if they were emotionally strong people, then they could be leaders of others, they would
be the type of people that would be rare in the world. And I think many people have found that
my children are rare, in many ways. What does it mean to be emotionally strong then? It means that
you understand there are productive emotions and non productive emotions. It means that you know,
that sorrow might be productive, but it could hit a point where it is suddenly keeping you
in bondage, and it's not productive anymore. It also means that, you know, love is productive.
But sometimes people do things out of love that might not be productive, right? So there's a line
with all of these emotions. Anger might need to be understood so that a person can actually get over
it. They might have to talk to somebody about it, but they shouldn't be tearing people apart with
it because is it right to emotionally throw up on somebody else all the time? What about them,
what happens to them and their emotions, if they have to take that from somebody else all the time,
it's also understanding that my emotions are my responsibility, not your responsibility. You
shouldn't have to make my environment safe for my emotions, I should be able to do that for myself.
That's what a truly strong emotional person does. They say, wait, this is what's happening
around me. I can't control all of that. But I can control this, I can make decisions for myself,
so that I can be in control of me, so that I can govern me. So here we are, to that word govern.
I look through everything through the lens of self government, because that is a principal, and
a principal is broadly applicable. That means it applies to everything, it applies to government,
it also applies to me personally, it applies to my family, to my business to my church. If we
are all self governing people, then we will have maximum freedom because self government is one of
the principles of freedom. So let's talk a little bit about self government, and what we can do to
nurture the emotional strength in our children, while also helping them feel understood. All
right, we're going to talk about the key things, how to create this self governed environment where
a person can feel understood, but also have good communication and connection with their parent,
and make sure that emotionally, their needs are also getting met. But before we do that,
do not forget about this book, I'm going to give it to you for free. So in the description
below this video, if you click on it, I will give you Parenting A House United for
free. This book talks about the majority of my system for teaching people self government,
is going to talk about what to do when they go completely out of control, how to prepare them,
so they don't go completely out of control, and how to strengthen your relationships and have
them live according to the values that you know, they will be happy with. This book is golden,
and we're gonna give it to you for free, you just have to pay the little bit of the shipping cost
so that we can get it to you. So click on the link now so that you can get this book for free.
So we've talked about self government before, 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 you make decisions. So what
does an emotionally strong person do? They know the point where they get to make the decision,
something happens, they get a feeling, they get to make a decision, then they make an emotion. Okay,
so this point where you're going to make that decision, that is a pivotal point for a self
governed person, they have to plan ahead of time. When I feel that feeling, this is the thought that
I'm going to choose to have so that I can have a productive emotion, or I am going to talk to
so and so about it in this way, I'm going to use my skill of disagreeing appropriately, if I ever
feel like I don't get my way. This is a gateway skill to self government understanding that skill
disagreeing appropriately is going to be huge. So when a person is becoming emotionally strong,
they make a plan for themselves. And then they follow through, it's a good idea for them to
have an accountability person, this is where the parent comes in. The parent helps them plan for
the thought processes, and the behaviors and the emotions that they want to have. And then
they are there to talk to about how it went afterward. Also, when the person is calm,
they should always be able to talk to the parent about anything. Parents,
we need to be open doors. If we're truly going to be understanding and empathetic to our children,
we need to be ready to talk about anything. There was a time when I told my children,
there is nothing that you could tell me that could shock me. I promise you, you can tell me anything,
I won't be mad. I won't be shocked. We can talk about anything. In fact, I want to talk about
everything with you. I don't want you to ever feel like you have to hide something from me,
because I won't get mad. I made a promise to them that I would stick to my skills. And if I ever was
going off the edge and getting mad, they could always say Mommy, I disagree appropriately.
And then they could say, Mom, I know that you're feeling a little bit anxious right now. But we
had said before that you weren't gonna get mad if we talked about things like this. Oh, yeah,
that's right and they could bring me back to reality. So there's even a way for them
to correct me if I need it. And I've told them that they have permission to use that skill to
help me get back on track if for some reason I have a moment where I'm not being calm or gentle
with them. My children know what I will say and they also know how I will correct the problems.
This gives them security. But they also know they will be heard. When we get to a place of calmness,
when we're able to disagree appropriately, talk about things in a calm way, there is nothing that
I won't talk about with them, and I will spend the time that is needed. I actually also felt very
impressed to tell my children in this day and age when so many people are feeling bad about
themselves and their decisions that they make that I would love them no matter what. I said,
I will love you no matter what, we're all going to have hard minutes and hard days,
I'm going to help you through it. I'm going to try to help you use your skills the best I can,
but also help you be able to get understood and get your problem solved. But if things go wrong,
if you have a hard time, I'm not going to judge you for it, I'm going to love you no matter what.
You can do the worst thing that you could possibly think of, and that would not stop me from loving
you. They need to know that. There are addictions, there are stumbling blocks galore. There are
people who are trying to capture their hearts and their minds for a little bit of money, for a little
booty, our children are the price. People want to sexualize them and control them and make money off
of them. That's called exploitation. They need to know that they have someone who will always
be there for them, and who will always listen. And I told them, that person would always be me,
it was one of the best things that I did. When I've had children who've had some bad moments, some
mistakes that they've made, they always came to me and said, I need help. This is what's happening.
And they knew that I would not judge them. So important. But this doesn't mean that we don't
correct them still because sometimes we need to correct them. And then sometimes we need to have
a talk. If they're coming to us openly, having good solid communication, we might point out a natural
consequence, or some sort of small consequence that they need to follow through with or maybe
even just talk about it with no consequence. But that talking is so important. The thing is,
is some children learn early on that they don't have to ever accept their consequences
if there never are consequences. So I do recommend having consequences for certain
things so that the children do learn cause and effect and they learn to control themselves
and not just vent everything at you. We want them to talk to us, be open with us,
but not use us as a scapegoat so that they don't learn how to solve their own problems
and make better choices for themselves. If we want our children to be emotionally strong, we've got
to be working on our emotional strength too and that really hinges on our ability to stay calm no
matter what, it takes practice. I am a high strong, strong willed person. But you know what, I've used
that strong will to actually focus on calmness at any given minute, to not take things personally and
move on in a good humoured way, you can do that too. And I'm happy to share some of my tricks
of calmness with you. Maybe I shouldn't say tricks, maybe I should say tools, because that's what they
are, tools of calmness. So not only am I going to give you this book for free. If you click on the
link below, you can get it sent to for free. Remember, we already talked about that. But
I also have a course it's a mini course. It's a great starter course to learning self government,
and it's called the calm parenting toolkit. There is a link to it in the description below or you
can go to teachingselfgovernment.com And you can find the toolkit there as well. Right now
it is for free. It's a 10 lesson course that will get you started on improving your calmness so that
your self government is starting to take steps forward, you're becoming more emotionally strong
so that you can pass that on to your children too. So click on the link to get your free book.
And then also make sure you get yourself signed up right now for the calm parenting toolkit that you
can get for free and I will see you there.