Hi, I'm Nicholeen peck. I teach parenting and family communications all through the lens
of self-government. In this video I'm going to be talking about the best parenting advice I received.
People always come to me for parenting advice but what they don't recognize
is that I am basically a collection of a whole bunch of parenting advice and training and
skills that I've received from other people. We all are, right? So I want to share with you five
pieces of advice that really changed who I am as a parent. In fact they contribute a lot to the tone
of my home and a lot of the teachings that I share. After I had my son, Porter and I was a busy
mom with four small children. I remember I met with another woman, we were doing a little field
trip because I was a homeschool mom so pretty busy, right? And I met with this mom and she said hey how
are things going with the new baby? So I looked at her, I took a little deep breath and I said
pretty good but I never get anything on my list done and she looked at me and said your list?
What's on your list and I said I mean basic things things like the laundry,
things like cleaning the bathroom, you know, basic things. Now this mother had eight children, she
was also a homeschool mother and her children were older than mine and with all the love in her heart
she looked right into my eyes and she said oh well, you're making the wrong list.
I said what? These are just simple things she said no. You need to make a list of things you
really will do, not all your hopes and dreams. She said if there's one thing that I know, it's that
we should definitely make a list of the things that we will do. She said you have a new baby,
you should be writing things on your list like feed the baby, feed the baby, feed the baby, change
the baby, feed the other children, those kinds of things because that's what you really are going
to do every day right now and I went she's right. Why didn't I think of that and how come I'm not
acknowledging what I actually am doing? I'm doing lots of things but because I'm such a motivated
driven person, I was putting things on my list that probably wouldn't get done for months. Now that's
not to say I didn't do my laundry for months but I probably didn't fold it and put it away for quite
some time. Washing it is one thing, getting it all back in the closet and drawers, totally different
so if we have to pull it out of a basket for a little while because we're in new baby mode
then that's okay. I was so grateful to my friend Janice for sharing that bit of advice that only a
seasoned mother would really know. I know I'm not the only one who has received parenting advice,
is there parenting advice that has changed your life? I invite you to put it in the comments below
because maybe somebody who's watching this video can learn something from your parenting advice too.
What have you learned? Maybe you didn't get this advice but if you were to give a piece
of parenting advice to somebody, what would you share based on the lessons that you've learned
in your life? When I had Porter, I had a problem with my breast milk not coming in in a good
amount of time, it was probably the increased stress of more children you know? I don't know
but whatever it was, it was a real labor, not just to get him here but after the fact because
I was feeding and supplementing and then starting it all over again every single two hours and it
was like I would get maybe a 45 minute break where I wasn't doing something related to getting food
into this sweet little baby and it was wearing me out night and day I was doing all of this
and truly I needed a little bit of you know a break or a rest or something. So I was meeting
with my midwife for a follow-up appointment and she said to me Nicholeen, what are you doing with
the feeding, that's an awful lot of work that you're going through and at this point
your breast milk should be able to catch up with what the baby needs and I said yeah but
you know it's just gonna be so hard. Any time that I try to just let him have just the breast milk,
it's just not enough and so then I have to supplement because otherwise he gets cranky and
she looked at me and she said what number child is this for you and I said number four and she said
oh, then crying doesn't bug you, right? Whoa, it wasn't even direct advice. She stated something
that she knew needed to be true inside of me for me to get through this time so, I was going to have
to let him be cranky she said for maybe a couple of days and it was going to be hard on the ears
and maybe even hard on the eyes to see a sad little baby for a couple of days
but when he was trying and trying to get more out of me and that increased crying would then bring
more milk into my system and would then have enough for him and you know what? She was right
and all of a sudden I got more sleep but what a great thing for me to remember for my entire life.
Crying doesn't bug me. Sometimes the needs of my child outweigh what I feel emotionally with the
child at the moment and so I've got to keep my head clear. What do I know versus what am I seeing?
The two things might not necessarily match and I've got to go with the truth versus
just those visual cues that could get a little confusing sometimes. Thank you Julie, my midwife.
My friend Janet and I were talking one day about self-government and she was learning some of the
skills of self-government that I teach and in particular we were talking about media choices
for the children and how they're needed to be set boundaries in place for the children and Janet
shared one of her bits of parenting advice with me that I felt like really added some good detail
to what I was doing with my own children in trying to create boundaries and so I grabbed it up and
thought that advice is one I'm gonna hold on to forever. So when we were talking about setting
boundaries for the children, Janet said well this is just like fruits and vegetables and children
asking for candy. So I call it Janet's Junk Food principle. So Janet said our children when they
ask for candy again and again and again, we know as parents that that means they've had too much candy
and we need to be giving them carrots and apples and cucumbers and other things that are healthy
for them because maybe they've had too much of a good thing. Same thing goes when our children
are asking for digital again and again or maybe play time with a friend again and again instead of
immediately thinking because they're asking for it, they must need it. As parents, we should be thinking
could it be that they're asking for this because they've had too much of it and they actually need
us to help balance out their time by having more connected family bonding time and doing things
with them instead of always giving them some sort of device or person that's going to divert
their attention for a while? Super wise, Janet. So I followed Janet's junk food principle. In fact I was
following it before she brought it up to me but now I know why it rang so true to set those limits
and boundaries for my children. Another tip I learned was actually from a credit card commercial.
So do you remember those credit card commercials where they would say going to the circus with my
child costs this much, buying cotton candy costs this much and they would list all these things
because it was a credit card commercial but then at the end it would say something like
making a lasting memory: priceless. Well I agree with that commercial in that when we
make a really good memory with our children, it's priceless however I don't agree that it requires
a credit card or a lot of money to make a lasting memory. In fact one of the memories from my life
actually happened with my own mother and she didn't have to give this advice. She just did
something that changed me forever. I had a busy mother. In fact my father was a school teacher
so mom would try to bring in some extra money by attending other people's children after school
hours so I had to often compete to get some of her attention which meant many days I was sitting in
my room playing by myself and it was a little lonely but I learned to deal with it. Well one
day mom came to the door of my room and she looked at me playing with my Barbie doll and she said can
I play with you? I was amazed and surprised and so excited that she would ask that question because
what she didn't know, I'm gonna cry a little bit but what she didn't know was that in my heart
that's what I wanted more than anything else was to play with my mom and so I said yes and for
maybe 20 or 30 minutes when other children were napping, me and mom played dolls, we played Barbie's
and it created such a magical memory in my heart that I vowed right then and there that I would be
the type of mom who would play with her children, who would create memories with her children,
memories that would stick and that would meet the things that they wanted most in their heart that I
wouldn't forget that my mom found something that I needed in my heart that day. So make memories
with your children, that was a piece of advice that came from a credit card commercial combined with
what my mother really did for me that made me a completely different mom. A more fun mom.
My next tip has to do with when you're talking to your children, praising your children or correcting
your children. You should look at them in the eyes. Years ago when I started doing treatment foster
care for troubled teens and I started learning all of these different skill sets that I was
going to be teaching these troubled youth that came to my home, I noticed that for many of the
skill sets that were in this huge book of skill sets, there was one thing that was common with
many of them, one step to a skill and that was the step number one oftentimes said look at the person
and I thought that's pretty significant, isn't it, because then the person could say well I'm ready
to be taught or I'm ready to be instructed or I respect you enough to look at you and that's why
they would look at you. But as I started parenting these foster children and my own children over
the years, I realized that look at the person was even more significant than I originally thought.
Your eyes are the windows to your soul. When there was a child who was crying or going out of control,
having a tantrum or something, I would look at them in the eyes and I would say the words that I
had planned to say to them to help them through the hard time but I would also think I love you.
I love you and I would send that love through my eyes to them. Those were the five tips but I
actually remembered that there's another one that I would love to share with you. I have to thank my
junior high vice principal, Mr. Lloyd Naylor. I don't even know if he's still living but I have
to say that Mr. Naylor really did give me some advice at a time when I was in ninth grade that
ended up changing my life and who I would become as a mother. So one day I was passing Mr. Naylor
in the hall and he said hey, Nicholeen how are you and I said pretty good. How are you, Mr. Naylor? And
he said I'm happy, thank you, that shocked me. Who says that? So at lunch, I approached this World War
II vet and I said earlier today you asked me how I was and I said I'm pretty good and because that's
what people say and then I asked you how you are and you said I'm happy, thank you. Nobody says that,
who says that? Why did you say that and he said to me because I'm happy and I said yeah Mr. Naylor
but every day doesn't go perfect. Surely there are some times where you're not happy, what do
you say then and you can't be happy all the time and he said why would I choose to be any other way?
That blew my mind. Why would I choose to be any other way? I recognized I had heard a truth from
this wise man and so throughout all of my years of parenting and interacting with other people. When
people ask me how are you doing, I say I'm happy thank you because I remind myself why would I
choose to be any other way? Mr. Naylor told me that when people ask you that simple question, that's
a great opportunity for you to tell yourself I choose happiness right now even if I hadn't chosen
it before. So you know what? Parenting's hard and they wake up in the night and they sometimes have
squabbles with each other, they sometimes have an attitude problem so how about choose not to take
it personally? Choose to be happy, choose that it's okay. Work on your calmness so that you're ready
to help them do all the learning that they need in those situations because you're not
reacting. Speaking of calmness, speaking of happiness, there is actually a skill set of
calmness that I created for myself years ago and I would love to get you introduced to calmness
and how you can be more calm in your parenting. In fact if there's something that I could give you as
my greatest advice, it's actually contained in my course about teaching self-government. There is an
introductory course, it's a free mini course that I would love to share with you and it is called the
calm parenting toolkit. There is a link below this video to the calm parenting toolkit. Click that
link now and you can start on the road to more good parenting advice especially related to your
calmness so that you can be prepared to be happy and handle anything that your child needs you for.