Hi, I'm Nicholeen Peck and I teach all over the world about parenting
and good communication and family relationships and I talk a lot about
strictness and in this video I'm answering your question: why are my parents so strict?
In this video we're gonna understand strictness and what that really means. Also we're going to
talk about one of my true stories as being part of the world's strictest parents, which
is kind of crazy and then also let's see if we can differentiate between whether they're being really
strict or whether they're being just ornery. When a person is strict, that means that they govern
themselves by principle. They live by principle. I found this out years ago when I was asked to be on
a BBC documentary. Well, reality tv show called The World's Strictest Parents.
I wasn't sure how I felt about being called strict. People had been asking me to teach parenting for
years and years because I did treatment foster care for a lot of years for troubled teens that
came to my home. When people asked me to be on this program and they wanted to call it The World's
Strictest Parents, I'm not strict. I don't yell at my children or anything like that
but you know what was funny? The BBC said well would you let your children go hang out of the pub,
would you let your children get tattoos or do drugs and I said no and they said well then
you're strict and I thought to myself well that's a pretty low bar. I think almost any parent would
be considered strict then because who wants their child to start doing things that would have
lasting negative consequences on their life like drugs and party lifestyle and all that kind of
stuff. Most parents would absolutely not want that. So anyway they brought these two troubled teens to
my home. They were both ages 17, they dropped out of school, they were having a hard time getting
along with their parents and stuff and they came to my home to stay for eight days in this episode
of The World's Strictest Parents. If you want to see The World's Strictest Parents episode then
definitely click on the link to the video now for that. After I agreed to be on the program
The World's Strictest Parents, I was a little bit concerned about that word being attached to me but
a friend of mine who was in her 70s, wise woman. She said to me Nicholeen, why are you worried about
being called strict? You're one of the strictest parents I know and I thought oh no. I am? What is
that? I'm not honorary or anything like that and she said Nicholeen, do you even understand
that what the word strict means? A strict parent doesn't need to yell and I thought to myself hmm,
maybe that strict parent is giving threats behind the scenes and making it so that her child would
never think of disappointing her but I'm like I'm not that parent. I'm not doing those things. I just
talk openly with my children and she said I'm not even going to tell you any more about this. You
just go look the word strict up so that's what I did. I looked at the word strict in Webster's
1828 dictionary and it said that a strict person was a person who governed themselves by a certain
set of principles. Meaning that their actions or behavior actually matched their principles.
It was the same. Most people their principles and their practice don't match but a strict person,
it does. In fact when I read that I went oh, I am a strict parent. I might be one of the world's
strictest parents because I am very strong-willed and when I find a truth, I hold on tight to it
and I'd make all of my actions align with that truth or that principle that I'm holding on to.
So then I realized I guess I was the world's strictest parent and I had to be okay with it.
The problem is that most people think the strict means ornery and those are two different things.
Let's talk about strict and orneriness but before we do, leave me a comment. Why are you asking
this question? What type of strict behavior have you seen? What are you wondering if it's strict
or not strict? I'd be happy to answer those questions for you in the comments below. Orneriness
is just emotional manipulation so you do need to remember that. when a person is just getting angry
at another person, that's an emotional response to a bad thought that's happening inside their head.
When I say bad, I mean a thought that gets them feeding their emotions, a thought that something
like that person doesn't care that person's ungrateful that person something like that
they're trying to assume things about somebody else and that gets them angry or ornery as soon
as they entertain that bad thought and choose to use one of those negative emotions then what they
do is they start manipulating their children in order to get some sort of result that they want
out of their children. Emotional manipulation is bad for your relationship and it's bad for your
communication so, it's definitely not the go-to that you should be working toward and many parents
just don't know what they don't know. Those parents are ornery, they're being manipulative,
they're not being strict because a strict parent would say wait a minute, my child needs to learn
something. What's a principle or a skill of good communication for how to correct my child
that I can use right now? What are the words that I've planned to say that my child will be prepared
to listen to so that I can instruct them properly? Okay now, I will follow through with my plan, that
is what a strict parent does. This means the parent would never just lash out at you, get mad,
touch you because those things are out of control behaviors. They're selfish behaviors, they're not
strict behaviors. It's not my goal to turn you against your parents because if you're asking
this question, you're probably wondering anyway how you can improve relationships with your parents
and I hope you'll keep trying to do that. There are some skills that you can learn
that can make a big difference in improving relationships with your parents. One of those
skills is a skill called disagreeing appropriately. When a person disagrees appropriately, they look at
another person calmly, keeping a calm face, voice and body and then they say that they understand
the other person's point of view, they share their point of view, they listen to what the other person
has to say and then they say okay and drop the subject even if the answer is no, they say okay. We
have to honor our parents enough to do that. When your parents emotionally manipulate you and then
you choose not to be calm and you start engaging in a power struggle, you're actually emotionally
manipulating them so it doesn't help you. When you choose to be strict, meaning that your principles
and practice match too, you end up becoming the perfect example for your parents. Did you know that?
You have the opportunity to teach them just by developing emotional maturity yourself. You
actually could sometimes be more mature if you know something that they don't know, you
still have to honor them. You still have to make sure that they are a person that you feel a duty
to love and to revere. They have to honor you too, which means that you need to understand who each
other is. If you're worried about connecting to your parents because maybe they have seemed a
little overly strict to you then probably you want to try to have some more gratitude for them
because actually gratitude is the seed of love. So when a person loves another person, they express
gratitude because they feel that the other person has value for them. But also when you're having a
hard time loving someone because maybe their behavior isn't what you want yet, then maybe
what you can do is you can express gratitude to start nurturing some of that love that you want
to feel for your parents. We've got to care about them. They don't know what they don't know, you know?
Just because they're the parents doesn't mean that they know everything. You always can refer
them to this awesome channel that teaches self-government to people. Yeah, my channel,
the teaching self-government channel because there's so many things on here that would
hopefully make it so that they could be truly strict and not just ornery if that's what's
going on. If you have enjoyed this video, I know you are going to love my next video which is
what does it mean to honor your parents. Click on the link to that video now. I'll see you there.