Hi, I'm Nicholeen Peck and I teach parenting, good communication and child development
all over the world through the lens of self-government and in this video
I'm going to be talking about breaking the generational cycle of bad parenting practices.
What happens to us does not have to be what we do in our parenting and I think we've got to embrace
that idea because so often people use the way that they were parented as an excuse for bad parenting
behavior. Now if you're watching this video, I'm pretty sure that you are wanting solutions so
that you don't have to just rely upon excuses and I commend you for that. So in this video, what we're
going to do is we're going to talk about some of these generational bad habits that we can fall
into and then I'm going to give you a step-by-step method for what you can do to make sure that you
break out of those generational cycles that you do not want to repeat. I speak about parenting at
large conferences all over the world and parents will come to me and they will say Nicholeen,
I've become my mother or I'm doing things that my dad did that I promised myself that I would never
do. How do I stop doing these same things and so that's when I say okay, we've got to understand
first what type of parenting you were parented with. So, there are different styles of parenting.
I have multiple videos on this channel that talk about the different styles of parenting,
how there's a bully fear-based style, modern progressive, really permissive style and then there
is the assertive traditional strict style and most people are a combination between these things
but if you're saying to yourself I don't want to do that that my parent did, so maybe it's laziness
or maybe it's aggressiveness, those are the two things that people usually don't want the most,
you have to say to yourself okay. So I don't want aggressive bully fear-based or I don't want modern
progressive permissive parenting, the lazy type. What I actually want is probably a more
principled approach which is your traditional strict type of parenting and again, I hope you
go look at those videos after this one so that you can make sure that you see more about those styles
so you can really draw those lines for yourself. But probably you want more of a principled
approach to your parenting which is why you don't want to fall into emotional habits or just
convenience like some parents do but the problem is is you only know what you've seen
and what you've experienced and so then your problem-solving abilities are not actually up
to the level of where your principles are. So, a truly self-governed person has their practice or
their behaviors and actions match their principles. So, that's the idea is to try to get yourself to
that stage. If you can have your practice match your principle then you will probably be able
to successfully pull out of any generational cycle or habit that you would consider to be bad or that
you don't want to duplicate yourself. Now, maybe some people are thinking but my parents, they you
know they were church going people. They were you know principal people or something like that they
may have had principles too but their practice didn't match their principles. So, be careful not to
turn on all of your parents principles and their religious you know convictions just because their
practice wasn't good because here's the thing. It's not that somebody is necessarily a hypocrite, it's
just that they don't know what they don't know and as you're trying to handle this situation
and of not becoming you know them, whoever raised you, you don't know what you don't know either
and so that's what we're going to try to help you understand is what you can know that will make a
difference. The very first thing of any correction is to be able to describe where you find yourself
or describe what you see. So, if you can understand the different styles of parenting and to be able
to identify this is what I want and this is what I'm doing a lot of the time or maybe I'm doing
some of this and some of this because I don't know how to get what I want. If you can just identify
that for yourself, that's really liberating and it gives you a direction to head that is not full of
emotional baggage and excuses. So, you've got to emotionally detach from what happened to you
in order to actually make a change and when I say detach, I don't mean in the unhealthy like pretend
life didn't happen but you have to let it go. You have to say you know what I'm dropping the subject
on that. I was raised in a way that obviously was detrimental to me or detrimental to somebody else
and that person maybe didn't know what they didn't know. Maybe they were narcissistic and
they had problems and they weren't treating the family well but usually it's that they just don't
know another way. So let's use compassion there, let's not judge the person but let's say
but we're not going to do it but I'm also not going to spend my time thinking about it anymore
because it's done, it's over you know I mean again unless it's a narcissistic person which
they never stop and it goes on forever and in which case watch my videos on narcissism.
But in most cases, once the children are grown and mostly grown or all the way grown,
the parent has no need anymore for those types of practices that they had and so then they just
go back to being just a regular person and then everybody's going why did we have to endure
all of that. So you don't want to be the parent where your child is thinking I don't want to
become them. You want to be somebody who they want to look up to, who they want to become
like and I know that that definitely was something that I was looking for in my parenting. I wanted my
children to see me as the example of how to live a good life. In fact when my daughter was just barely
getting married, she said to me you know mom if I could just be like you, I would know that I could
have a happy life. I would feel like I'm very successful and nothing could have been so sweet
to me as those words because I had worked on myself so much to make sure that I wasn't a
reactive parent and that I was really there for the children but I also taught them a lot and
I was also calm with all those teachings and corrections and that's what she was hoping to
become for her life. There was no greater honor that could be said to me than at that moment
and I know you're probably hoping for something like that too. Not that you can completely control
how someone's going to process your parenting especially because there's outside sources
that sometimes try to influence, but you can know that you've done your best if you have parented
by principle. So, let's talk about the step-by-step process of parenting by principle and what that's
going to look like. Before we go through the step-by-step process, hit that subscribe button.
There are tons of videos on this channel that you are going to want to digest. Sometimes maybe
even again and again so that you do not fall into that generational cycle that you are trying to get
away from. So hit subscribe now. So let's talk about principled parenting. One of the principles that I
hold most here is the principle of self-government. 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 behavior so that you can control them. So this means that in order to be self-governed,
I have to have a plan ahead of time of where I am headed. Not just focus on where I've been
but I've got to be focusing on where I'm going and then say and what's happening right now that I can
use this moment to help me get to where I want to go. That is what a self-governed person does
and so what we have to do is take that deliberate time and be intentional about where we want to be
headed in our relationships and in our family. So, I do believe in assessing relationships on a
regular basis and I will sit down and think about the relationships in my family and say how can I
improve that relationship, how would I describe that relationship right now? What are the
good parts of the relationship what are the things that you know I definitely need to put my focus
on and work on? Do I feel connected enough to that person or not? Those types of evaluation questions
that help me prepare to have better relationships with my family members. They are powerful but
another thing that I have done which I do believe has been really important for our family is we
have created a family vision. So, I teach self-government parenting and we have a course
and in our teaching self-government course, I talk about creating a 20-year vision for the future of
what those relationships are going to feel like and be like in the future and there's a way,
I'm not going to go into it right now for creating a really great vision. There's other videos on this
channel that talk about that so you definitely can look at some of those but it's basically
this picture that we hold on to that's how we are going to feel when we are with each other
all these years in the future, that's our plan, that is how we are going to adjust history if
we need to. So if you're trying to break out of a generational cycle then you've got to make a
new picture for yourself. You only have one picture, that's the picture that you've had or maybe the
pictures on TV which are like highly dysfunctional. So, you want something different, you haven't
seen it yet, you've got to take time to see it and maybe pull out even some classic books, some
really good whole books. I mean honestly pull out Little House On The Prairie, see how they talk to
each other, how they solve their problems, that's a fantastic example of a functional family and
so start reading about those things and then say okay. What do I want? Do I want to have time
where I'm singing with my children, playing music with my children like mon paw ingles did in little
house in the big woods and little house on the prairie and that that series of books. If so then
I've got to start doing that now. I've got to articulate that to the family and then let's
start doing it now. So, start working on a vision of where you're headed. Then once you've created that,
you are ready for some good principled skills that are going to lead you in that direction and
by the way the principle behind that preparation is without vision, the people perish. Okay so if you
do not know where you are going, your chances of getting there would be purely accidental. You don't
accidentally become a united family and a happy family. It's not an accident, it's something that
people work toward on purpose, that doesn't mean everybody nails it a hundred percent but it is
a deliberate action that people do. So that's the principle, let's talk about these skills. There are
a lot of communication skills that I teach that are going to be vital for breaking bad habits. When
we solve problems as a group, sometimes this brings out the worst in families and in our parenting.
We get too emotional about the problems, that is the number one mistake. We've got to remember not
to take the problems that people do personally. This is vital for our success. We've got to be
able to say okay that just happened. How do I talk to them about it and help them with it instead of
going why did they do that? This is making my life so hard, this is taking more time this is you know
fill in the blank. Those are the things people think when they're taking it personally when
they should be instead thinking how can I help this person that I love because clearly there's a
problem right here. This goes with our parenting as well as with our communications as spouses
you know also. So keep that in mind. So, we need to have good communication skills so that means we've
got to teach our children the skills that they need for success with us and we need to know the
skills too. So I want to make sure I hit that very clear. The children understand all the skills that
they need to communicate on their side of any interaction and the children also learn all of
the parenting skills. They're going to be parents one day, so let's teach them the skills that
they need for success. As we practice them in our home, it also increases predictability in all of
the interactions which decreases the anxiety and the frustration and contention that can occur.
So, having them understand all the words that you will say before they're even said in a correction
interaction only serves them well. It serves you well too and it removes all manipulation which
it's the manipulation I bet that you really don't want to do. The manipulation looks like
anger, it looks like getting emotional, it looks like putting up walls and not talking to people,
that's all manipulation to try to control how a person feels in order to control an outcome,
that's bad parenting and that's probably what you felt that you didn't want. So in order to not have
manipulation, you need skills. I wrote this book called Parenting A House United back in 2009
after the BBC made a documentary of our family on a program called The World's Strictest Parents.
This is a best-selling book and it details so many of the skills that you will need for success.
There's also courses and trainings where I talk about all the things in this book plus more.
So what types of skills do I teach in this book? I teach the skill following instructions, the
skill accepting "no" answers and criticism, the skill accepting consequences and the
skill disagreeing appropriately. Those are the four basic skills that children can learn but
they're not just for children. They're for adults too. If you have a disagree appropriately mindset,
you're always going to be more open-minded and have a good listening ear for your children
and for your spouse. These skills also help you in the office and just throughout daily life in
general. The other skills that we're going to talk about in this book have to do with correcting the
behaviors and teaching the children the right way. I also teach the skill of doing a problem-solving
exercise called a SODAS, which helps the child learn how to get better outcomes in their
communications and their actions. These types of things as well as the family standard that we
create and the family meetings and the culture the tone of calmness that we create in our home
all lay the foundation for following through on that family vision that we create as a group. So,
these things need to be pre-taught ahead of time and then you need to consistently follow through.
Consistency is one of the hardest things for parents to do and that's because they get caught
up in the moment and they start getting creative in their parenting or maybe they're tired that day
so they don't correct something that should be corrected and then the child learns there's
a little loophole when mom's tired. You can get away with whatever you want you know or something
like that. So, consistency is vital for teaching cause and effect which is important for learning
self-government. That means that the parent has to decide it's worth the effort every day, every
time no matter what. Even if they have to wake up in the middle of the night, it's worth the effort
to do that teaching, do that training and that correcting that the children need. This is going
to also help you break a manipulation cycle that you might have experienced as a child.
Why do parents manipulate? Because they're lazy, because they don't want to deal with it, because
they want you just to comply and leave them alone. It's all selfishness so if you're willing to put
in the work and to say oh it's time to stand up and do teaching or do correction, I welcome it.
If you can decide that that's what you were meant for because you are the parent in the interaction
then guess what? You probably won't manipulate as often. I could tell you so many more things about
how to implement a system that would break that generational cycle that you are wanting to break
but instead of spending my time here, I want to just refer you to a full class that I did
on this channel for free for you. The class is called the Not So Known Secret For Parenting
Success and it will go into a lot of detail about the skills that you need
for success in your home. So, click on the link to the Not So Known Secret For Parenting Success now.