Do you know a lazy child? Well, in this video, we're going to talk about how to motivate a lazy
child. I'm Nicholeen Peck, iIm parenting expert. And I am most known for teaching around the world
about self-government or self-control. And conquering laziness is definitely a
self-government issue. So, let's talk about conquering that laziness now.
In this video, I want to talk about laziness and then provide for you a skill correction system
so that you can see exactly how laziness is conquered. And if you stay with me all the way
to the end, I have a bonus for you that I think you're going to enjoy and will definitely be a
boost in conquering that laziness and whoever it is that you're trying to help. So, many parents
ask me how to help their children with laziness problems. They mention children who won't get off
the couch, children who won't help out around the house, children who just don't want to do their
homework, don't want to get up in the morning. And they worry about things like emotional issues,
psychological issues. If there's bullying or some social issue that the child is concerned about and
all those things could definitely be a concern. There are many things that children nowadays are
going through. And we have to remember to keep looking at all of the different areas of their
life. I do know one thing and that is that parents absolutely have a moral obligation to teach their
children to get up and endure to the end no matter what. Even if the child doesn't want to,
it's the parent that teaches that dignity of work so that the child knows they can keep moving
no matter what. We have to empower our children not let them be defeated by whatever worries
that they have. Of course, there are some things that need to be talked about with professionals
and that parents need to take some time to talk about their children if issues are extreme. But if
we're talking about just the symptom of laziness then we've got a system of correction for you that
I think you're going to enjoy. This is the skill correction system. It's based on the principle of
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 that a person analyzes themselves and analyzes cause and effect and decides what it
is that they ought to do to get the best results for themselves, it also is a process of connecting
to family. So, when we talk about self-government, we're talking about the entire environment,
the entire family making a change together. So, that's one thing I want to explain before we get
into this correction system. And that is that if you want to change the heart of one person.
You usually have to change the entire family. So, if you've got one person that's having a laziness
issue then that means everyone needs to step up and put all of their laziness issues aside,
I know maybe there's some people that seem like they're working more than others
and we shouldn't be having them be part of the same system. But I promise you consistency with
the entire group everyone learning the same skills is definitely the way to touch the heart of the
one. And you know what? Everyone improves. In fact, it's always magical feeling for people
when their family starts following instructions, accepting no answers, accepting consequences,
and disagreeing appropriately. Which are the 4 basic skills that we teach children
in the teaching self-government parenting course. You can find a lot of information about those four
basic skills on teachingselfgovernment.com. Look for the parenting course and some of the other
resources that we provide there so that you can start learning self-government at your house.
In order to learn self-government, a person basically goes through this skill correction
system again and again. Let's say a person needs to learn the skill of following instructions which
probably a lazy child needs to know that skill. If they won't follow an instruction from you,
you have to ask yourself a question, "Hmm, where is our relationship at? Do we have our roles in
the right place? Are we experiencing dysfunction? Do they know who they are in our family or do they
not? Do we need to go to that base level to get ourselves understanding the truth about who we are
in the family?" Once you do that, create a family vision so that your family knows the direction
that they're going. After that, you're going to teach skills. The process of teaching skills is
called pre-teaching. So, you will teach the child ahead of time the 5-step process for following
instructions. And you will also teach them how you will correct things if there's a problem
and how you will praise things if things are going right. If they do follow instructions
they should know there's some good that comes of it. Because in the self-government model,
there is cause and effect. That means good should equal good, bad should equal bad. So,
you pre-teach all the skills and how you will correct the skills. Then you give the instruction
to the child. This is the moment where they need to take action. If they don't, you correct the
child. If they do follow the instruction which means they do all 5 steps --looking at the person,
keeping a calm face, voice, and body; saying okay you're asked to disagree appropriately, doing
the task immediately and then checking back. If they can't do or won't do all 5 of those things,
they might be a little bit more oppositional than lazy. It could be a combination of the boat.
Sometimes the laziness can be the root problem for why a person does choose to be oppositional. So,
after you give the instruction if they do follow the instruction all 5 of those steps,
then you praise them and you tell them exactly what they did well and why it was a good idea
and that you think that was a good choice for them. Then step number 4 is you pre-teach again.
So, after you correct, you go straight back into a pre-teach after you praise you go straight into a
pre-teach. "This is what you did well. This is why it was done well. This is what you should
do in the future." or "This is what happened that was not right. This is what you should have done.
And in the future, let's do it that way. So, let's practice it the right way now." So, you're going
to be constantly going back to this teaching step. When you're teaching someone self-government,
there's a big emphasis on the teaching. In fact, the pre-teaching is one of the things that sets
self-government parenting apart from all of the other parenting styles out there. Our emphasis is
on teaching the children ahead of time what they need to do so that they make the right decisions.
So often, parents shoot from the hip make things up as they go which leads a child to a place where
they're going to manipulate and the parent is going to manipulate too. So, if you want your
child to conquer laziness you have to be willing to correct them every time. Now some of you might
be saying, "Listen. It's so bad. If I correct them, they wouldn't care. They wouldn't do
anything." Then we have something else called the rule of 3. The rule of 3 is a parent skill that
we use to help a person become in instructional control. If they are choosing not to follow any
instructions, this is what we use to help them disengage that emotional or maybe that lazy brain
and engage the front thinking brain and decide that it might be in their best interest to take
action. So, I have another video about that it's called What Does Rhe Rule of 3 Mean in Parenting?
Check that out on the channel and you'll learn more about what to do with that rule of 3. Now for
the bonus that I promised you at the beginning. Work is something that they need. In fact,
if you don't want your child to be lazy from the beginning, work more. But here's the key to making
work something that they will abide. That is that you have to like it. If you don't like work,
they won't like work. That's just how it goes. Many parents don't like work, they're very vocal
about not liking work even though they do it anyway. They have this duty that they follow
through. Well, we have an entitlement problem in our society nowadays. And so, many of our children
are not having that same sense of duty because the media and society has been pushing this idea
that children deserve certain things. And so, they don't feel like they should have to do anything.
This is when we run into the laziness problem but work really is the antidote for a sick character.
We need to make sure that we teach our children the dignity of work by showing work dignity
ourselves. This means that we should not complain about work and we should invite the children along
with us to work with us on a regular basis. Many times what we do is we think in our mind
"This person doesn't care. This person needs to do that all by themselves." What we really need to do
is we need to bring them along with us, work with them on a regular basis until they get in their
groove and can start doing more things on their own. I know this seems silly when you're talking
about a 15-year-old boy or a 16-year-old girl. But trust me, they need time working with their
parents, they need to learn the dignity of work the satisfaction that comes when there is a job
well done. If you enjoyed this video, I highly recommend you watch my next video which is What
is the Rule of 3 in Parenting? Remember, this one is going to help you especially if you've got a
child that is at a laziness scale that they don't care if you're going to correct them,
they are still going to sit there and do nothing. I question whether there might be some
oppositional defiance there. But either way the rule of 3 will help. So, learn the skill today.