Hi, I'm Nicholeen Peck and I teach parenting all over the world. In fact, I'm known
for teaching parents and children how to govern themselves with the principles of self-government.
In this video, I'm going to be talking about house rules for kids and creating a rules chart.
In this video, I'm gonna be talking about the simplest way that you can encompass everything you
might create a family rule for and do it according to principle too. There is a difference between
rules and principles, we're going to talk about that in this video and the key principles that
you can incorporate into your family rules so that those rules will stick no matter the circumstance
even if it's the first time it happened. There are so many things that we tell our children not to do,
right? "Don't touch that, be sure to brush your teeth, don't say mean words, don't do that, don't
do that." We're always giving them these commands of what to do and what not to do. In fact, all of
these little commands turn into what we think in our mind are the rules of our family environment,
however it gets really overwhelming. In fact, it's a lot of things to keep track of because it seems
like every one of those "don't do's" or "do do's" ends up becoming its own separate area that a
person has to remember in their mind. It's a unique rule that they have to memorize. What if a person
only needed to memorize 4 rules and what if those rules were based on principle so they made
sense no matter when they were applied? Well, that's what I'm going to be giving you today but first
let's be clear about the difference between a rule and a principle. Principles are eternal,
they're everlasting. They go on forever and ever. In fact, if there is a principle of honesty, it sticks
even if for some reason some people decide that they don't want to live according to it, everybody
is still rubbed just a little bit wrong if they don't. Why? Well, because it's a principle. There
are so many different principles that we live by no matter our religious persuasion or even
where we are brought up. There's just ways that we conduct ourselves that seem to be in harmony with
integrity and truth. Those ways that we conduct ourselves are by principle. So, I want you to think
of the principles that matter the most to you. What are they? Are they principles like family unity and
bonding? Are they principles like calmness and that a person can choose to be calm if they want
to or what about good open communication? Is that a principle? Well, those are a few of the principles
that I have used in our family and with all of the foster children I've raised over the years
in order to make for us 4 special rules that we use for every situation. Now, I know every family
has different principles that they think are the most important. Now, the thing with principle is if
it's true to you, it's going to resonate true with everyone. So, what are key principles that you want
your family to live by? Things that you hold dear. Ponder that. In fact, how about you share them with
everybody else. Put your favorite principle in the comments below, the principles that you think other
people might need to consider as they're trying to decide what principles they want to use to raise a
happy family. So, what are rules then? What is the difference between a rule and a principle? Well,
usually rules are the application of principle if you are a principled person. But they're also just
ways to control an environment or to keep people going in a certain direction. In fact, rules don't
have to be based on principle at all. There are many parents who are bullies to their children.
I know that none of us like to think of ourselves that way but this is a popular type of parenting
and some parents who are more bully fear-based, they will start creating rules out of everything
just because little behaviors bother them. So, parents who micromanage their children maybe every
single thing they wear and every single thing they do, every movement, every mannerism that the
child displays, they end up creating a rule for it. So, is there a reason to have proper etiquette? Yes.
Is there a principle behind it? Yes. it helps people feel comfortable, it shows refinement
and so that people end up taking a person more seriously and they listen to them, but do we need
to micromanage every single etiquette point? No. If we do, then we're getting into overreach and
it's too many rules and we lose the foundation of principle. So, we have to remember that as parents.
In fact, I think sometimes as parents, we focus so much on trying to make life easy for ourselves
that we start creating rules out of everything just because we don't want to deal with the
teaching that quite frankly is the part of being a parent that we need to embrace the most.
So, what about those 4 principles/ rules that you can use for absolutely everything? Let's
talk about those. In fact, I have books that teach what I call The 4 Basic Skills
To Children. These 4 skills are based in principle and they are rules that the family
can use to take care of 99.9% of all behavioral problems. In fact, these 4 rules or principles,
because they are rules based on principle, are the types of things that not just children need but
adults need to. In fact, as I say these 4 basic skills to you, you will recognize that you probably
know many adults who do not know how to do these skills. So, in this book, London Larae Says Okay,
it teaches the skill following instructions. To follow instructions, you do 5 things.
You look at the person, keep a calm face, voice and body, say okay or ask to disagree appropriately,
do the task immediately and then check back. Now, think. When you have a child that doesn't want to
do a chore or doesn't want to brush their teeth or doesn't want to go to bed on time or doesn't
keep their curfew or doesn't eat their vegetables, these are all instructions that you're giving them
that they are not doing. So, what are they doing when they don't follow this instruction? Are they
having a whiny attitude and not keeping a calm face, voice or body? Are they talking back to you
which means they're not saying okay or disagreeing appropriately or are they just not doing it? That
means they're not doing the task immediately and they're not checking back. So, you see that follow
instruction rule is basic. In fact it's so basic that it is the baseline skill. If a child will not
follow instructions, doing those 5 things from their parents, it actually eliminates the parents
ability to teach the child and parent the child. It is a baseline skill. It solidifies the roles in the
family, keeps the parent as teacher and the child as learner, which is so important. It also helps the
child feel confident knowing that they have good leadership because someone is going to be teaching
them what instructions they need to follow. The next one of the 4 basic skills is Accepting No
Answers and Criticism. This book Porter Earns A Quarter teaches that skill to children.
So, what types of "no" answers happen in a child's life or in our lives? Well, there are many things.
Think of getting cut off in traffic, guess what? That's a "no" answer. Think of missing your flight
or not winning a race that you hoped to win or a game that you hoped to win, those are all "no"
answers that we have to accept. We have to decide if we can be calm and self-regulate ourselves, if
we can self-govern even at a time when things don't go our way. Well, maybe you say to a child,
"You can't play computer games today or for the week," or however you're using screens in your house.
Well, that would be giving the child a "no" answer. There are 4 steps to accepting a "no" answer. You
look at the person, keep a calm face, voice and body, say okay or ask to disagree appropriately,
and then drop the subject. That means no attitude problems, no anger, no pouting or isolating
themselves, no going to the other parent to try to change the other parent's mind, nothing like
that. They just decide it's okay. "It's okay that my parent has authority and that they've given
me a "no" answer. I can be okay when life doesn't go my way." Think of so many people that you know,
even adults who complain all the time because they can't accept "no" answers. They can't accept
when the little moments of life don't go their way. The 3rd of the 4 basic skills is accepting
consequences. We can't deny that there are consequences in everything that we do. There's
natural consequences and artificial consequences. So, for instance, if I speed down the road and I get
a ticket, that's an artificial consequence. But if I speed down the road and then I can't stop fast
enough when something runs out in front of my car and I hit it like a pet or something I didn't want
to run over, well guess what? That's a natural consequence because I wasn't obeying the law
in that particular area. Well, the same thing goes for our children. How are they going to learn to
accept the natural consequences and artificial consequences that are part of everyday life
if we don't teach them the skill for accepting consequences? Now, this does mean that parents also
need to have the skill for how to correct a child properly and calmly. In fact, I have 5 skills
that I teach in my Teaching Self-Government course for parents for how to correct children
in a calm way and how to get things going in a good direction if they're going off course.
So, parents will need their skills but then children need to know the skills for accepting
the consequences that they have earned. That's right, that's how we talk about it in our house.
They have earned the consequences because it's their own self government that they're trying to
master. So, the steps to accepting a consequence are you look at the person, keep a calm face, voice and
body, say okay or ask to disagree appropriately, do the consequence that you've earned and then check
back from that consequence and drop the subject. this helps a child recognize that it's okay,
it's even healthy to be corrected. In fact, I always tell parents that you should feel closer to your
children during and after a correction than you even did before. These aren't moments that are bad
moments for the child. The 4th of the 4 basic skills is often times the child's favorite skil.
This skill opens the door to open communication and allows everybody to be heard but within the
bounds of principle. What is the principle? Calm communication and seeking to understand other
people before you get understood yourself. The skill that is taught in this book, Paige Takes The
Stage, is the skill disagreeing appropriately. When a person disagrees appropriately, they look at the
person keep a calm face, voice and body, say that they understand the other person's point of view,
share their point of view, listen to what they have to say and then say okay and drop the subject.
So, this skill is the seed of diplomacy. Do you want your child to learn how to talk to other
people who may want something different than them or see things differently than them their
entire lives? Well, then they need to learn how to disagree appropriately. They need to learn to not
take the differences in other people personally, not get emotional. They need to be able to see and
appreciate that other person's point of view and share their point of view in a way that's going
to be helpful to both people in the conversation. Those are the 4 basic skills that I teach my
children and that I've taught all of my foster children over the years. These 4 basic skills
make a huge difference in the way the whole family sees their interactions, then it's not about power
struggling, it's about, "Oh I didn't keep a calm face, voice and body. Let me redo that," right or
"Oh, I'm not seeking to understand here your point of view so I'm obviously talking back
and I'm not disagreeing appropriately. I need to work on that. Let's redo that. Let's practice it
the right way," and then when negative consequences need to occur because corrections need to occur,
the child's ready to accept those too. You can't learn self-government without being willing to
accept when you've made a mistake and need to fix something because you have to acknowledge
cause and effect. But beyond these 4 principles, these 4 basic skills that we teach, there is a
list that our family has that we call the family standard. This list of things is like the do's and
don'ts. Things like we don't gossip about other people, we don't take these types of substances
into our body, we don't dress in this way, we do dress in this way, things that talk about certain
behaviors. But basically this family standard that we created for our family is actually just a list
of the instructions and the "no" answers that our family wants to always live by and remember. So,
oftentimes people get caught up in making this huge standard of all of these things that they
don't want to do as a family or that they do want to do as a family but it becomes so voluminous and
overwhelming that the children can't follow all of it. So, what we've done is we've kept it simple.
4 basic skills and those 4 basic skills give you all the steps you need in order
to keep all of the family standards that we have as a family. It's really beautiful and it brings a
lot of security to the children, decreases anxiety and promotes unity. So, let's talk about creating a
family rules chart. So, as I was pondering how I wanted to display our family rules for children,
we ended up creating a chart that had all of the 4 basic skills. Now, this is a very small
version of it. This is a cue card that actually I kept in my pocket for years but also provided it
in chart form to the children so that they would know all of the steps that I listed to you about
those 4 basic skills. Also I have other cards in my cue card set that I use to help remind me
of some of the other parenting skills that I'm gonna need to have to be a self-governed and
calm parent. Additionally, we created a chart that showed our children there's the light
side and the dark side, okay? Good and bad choices and on the good side, it lists the skills. Following
instructions, accepting "no" answers and criticism, accepting consequences, disagreeing appropriately.
So, this chart shows them, this is what we actually call a choices map, shows them when they could make
these choices and stay away from going down the path that leads to negative consequences.
So, it starts up here with a decision-making moment and then leads to either correction, a negative
consequence or to the skill that they need. I'm not going to talk through the whole chart but you can
see that it handles even the most out of control behaviors. So, this type of a chart shows the child
when the skills can be used and when the parents are going to be using the parent skills as well. So,
this helps them know this is how interactions are going to go. When they know the words to
the interactions, so they know your skills and their skills, and they know when those skills
are going to be used, they are confident in their communication and they will seek to understand you
and to be understood instead of fighting. They will go to that disagree appropriately skill
much more often. There is so much more information that I could share with you about house rules and
about the principles of self-government. In fact, for watching this video today, I'd like
to give you a free gift. In the description below this video, there is a link to the Calm Parenting
toolkit. If you click that link, you can get my Calm Parenting toolkit for free. This is a mini course
that will help you understand how to parent your children and correct your children more calmly and
how to help them get calm at the same time. So, click on that link now and I'll see you there.