My name is Nicholeen Peck. I'm a parenting expert and I have seen my share of bad behaviors
all over the world now for over 20 years. As I have been teaching people how to govern
themselves and how to teach their children self-government as well. In this video, I'll
help you see how parents behaviors are related to child behaviors. And what we can do to
make sure our children are the most successful. So, let's talk about bad behavior for a minute.
What are some of those bad behaviors that we really don't like that our children do?
Let's see. One of those bad behaviors might be not waking up on time. Another one of those
bad behaviors might be yelling. Maybe bad language or saying things they shouldn't.
Getting short tempered. Maybe being lazy. Not accomplishing what they should do. These
are all things that parents could do too, aren't they? Very interesting. Because they're
just human misbehavior that have to be conquered. Our children aren't perfect. In fact, when
I was a foster parent for troubled teens for the many years that I did that, I always told
myself that I cannot expect these children to be perfect because no children are perfect.
So, instead what I was going to make at my house was joyful adults who knew what their
mission in life was and couldn't wait to fight for it and solid relationships with God and
family. If I kept myself focus on that type of an adult that I was creating, then I could
make sure that I could handle any misbehavior that happen without having misbehavior of
my own. Parents do have misbehavior of their own. This is true. In fact, when children
show signs of misbehavior like maybe a child swears or they won't eat their food and the
parent gets frustrated or they get worried because they don't want the child to have
that particular type of misbehavior, when the parent takes things personally, which
is always a dangerous thing to do, then oftentimes the parent initiates a power struggle. That's
right. Parents can actually initiate power struggles just as often as children initiate
power struggles. And this is because they don't know how to always handle that situation
that has come upon them. And I know that it's (I guess) parenting philosophy that floats
around for the ages or has been floating around for the ages that we can't know everything,
there's no like manual when it comes to parenting. Well, actually there might be kind of a manual
when it comes to parenting. This book Parenting: A House United which is a best seller all
over the world that I'm known for. A lot of people call it the bible of parenting. Alright?
This is one you don't get rid of. You may want to look into this book. Anyway, I know
that people say there's no manual to parenting and they feel like they have to be creative
every time a new situation arises. But what learned as a foster parent for troubled teens
was that getting creative was going to get us all into trouble because it wasn't predictable
and oftentimes would go emotional. So, instead I decided to create scripts and skill sets
for myself so that I didn't misbehave. So, that I could point the direction for my children.
Because just like a power struggle when one person struggles, the other person starts
struggling there's this boomerang effect that happens in a power struggle. Also with good
behavior, good conduct, calmness; that also has a boomerang effect and leads to other
good behavior and calmness. So, I hope you're seeing that parents definitely do have an
impact on their child's behavior. Good behavior and misbehavior. Now, what I'd like to do
is to go into some detail on the yes-answer to our question of how are behaviors impacts
our children or does it indeed impact our child's behavior? Yes. And then go into some
things where no. Because we aren't to blame for everything. I'm going to talk about yes,
that we are to blame. Then I'm going to talk about no that we're no to blame. Then I'm
going to talk about yes again that we are to blame and then no again that we're not
to blame. So, let's get into the first round of yes, we are to blame for our children's
misbehavior. Some of the reasons why we are to blame for our children's misbehavior is
because we are the ones doing the teaching. We are the one that are supposed to teach
the skills. So, we teach our children how to problem solve. We teach them the skills
they need to accomplish things or we don't. We also teach our children priorities. If
our priorities are our own things and not the relationships that are around us. If your
priorities are how we feel and what we want in a minute, then our children are going to
think, "They don't want to get up. That's a priority." That's how they feel in the minute
too. The things that we teach our children really do come out when we see their misbehavior.
Parents set the example for how to self-govern. So, if I want my children to wake up on time,
guess what I have to do? I have to tell my self to wake up on time. And when the alarm
goes off, I've got to get up. No excuses. Otherwise I can't be too shocked if when they're
alarm goes off or I tell them it's time to wake up that they've got their own share of
excuses and their lack of motivation too. Another reason that we are to blame for some
of our children's misbehavior is because it's actually up to us to establish the parental
authority in the home. And to establish to roles. If we allow them to talk back to us
and get sassy with us or don't follow our instructions, don't accept our no-answers,
don't accept our corrections. If we allow them to get wild and go out of control and
not honor us, then we're actually teaching them that they're misbehavior is okay. Are
maintaining the parental authority on the home keeps them protected and us protected?
It helps everyone feel security. And it's vital lesson that we teach. We're also to
blame for how our children communicate with each other because the way communicate with
our spouse, the way that we communicate with our friends, the way we communicate with our
children teaches them what they should communicate like. Sometimes we're not on our best behavior.
Sometimes we don't realize that those satellite dishes on the side of their head are picking
up all kinds of things that we really wish they wouldn't think, they wouldn't say and
they wouldn't try to use to solve their problems because we already know they're not effective.
We don't feel good after we talk in these ways that are negative or angry or whatever
our go-to is to solve our problems. We don't want that for our children so that means we've
got to conquer our selves. So now, on to the no-answer. What are we not to blame for our
children's misbehavior? Well, we're not to blame on a few things. They have other influences
in their life. They've got peers, there's the media, there's books they read. There
are school teachers that also show them things like how to solve problems and what to think
about certain things in the world. So, our children are influenced by other people around
them like grandma and grandpa, aunts and uncles, cousins, friends and who they see on the screen.
We can't do a ton about that. But there is something that we can do makes a little bit
of a difference when it comes to trying to stop those people for having a negative effect
on our child's sense of well-being and their behavior. So, this brings me to the second
yes. Yes, we are to blame somewhat for our child's behavior. But in this way it can be
a good thing or a bad thing. We are to blame because we're the ones who get to decide who
our child gets to be with. What school they go to. What friends they get to associate
with. If they spend time with certain family members and how much screen time they get.
We get to decide whether we put a phone in they're pocket or tablet in their room. We
get to make those decisions. So, it is a little bit on us if they start taking all of their
social queues and behavioral queues from the influences that are outside of their immediate
family and their parents who should be the ones directing their behavior the most. So,
now we're on to the second no or that we're not to blame for their behavior. So, I hope
this doesn't feel to crazy to you. We've said we are to blame but yet we're not blame. But
we're kind of are to blame. And now, I'm going to end with we're not to blame. So, we're
not to blame in one aspect and that is that every person has personal choice. We all have
agency which means that as part of the human make up, we can see a situation, we can access
what we know about that situation, we can access what our will and our morals us about
that situation. And we get to make a choice. Our children get to make choices and we get
to make choices. Even if we have done all the teaching that we can do. If we have directed
them in every way, they still could choose to go away from that teaching. And we have
to always remember that. This will help us maintain our love and understanding of them
even if they're doing things that we wish maybe they wouldn't do or they wouldn't say.
But you know what? There's hope. So, that's what I want to talk about now, is what is
our hope in this situation? If they could choose bad despite what we do because every
person has that, where does our hope lie? I always maintain hope for my children and
I always maintained hope for my foster children. I knew that if they had a good example that
they have learned from, someone who is self-governing themselves, then they would have the edge
when it came to lay your times in life when they didn't know what to do, when they're
life had fallen apart a little bit. They could go back into the recesses of their mind and
say, "I knew somebody who was happy. I knew somebody who seem like they had control over
a lot of things in their own life. And that's somebody was me and my husband. We've worked
really hard on governing ourselves. If parents work on controlling themselves, learning how
to follow their own instructions, accept the no answers for the things that they know would
be damaging to themselves, they know how to disagree appropriately with others and self-correct,
then their children will see that it is a good idea to do the same. And when a person
is going to be making their own choices, they got to know that some of their choices include
self-correcting and self-directing again and again. Which is the premise of the concept
of self-government. The second thing that we can always maintain hope in is that learning
is never done. Life is long. Our child could learn that vital lesson that we hoped they
learn at age 15 or age 17 when they're 37 or 55. That can happen because life is long.
And they may not decide to take that one lesson totally to heart until they really feel like
they needed it at another time in their life. That doesn't mean the lesson was in vain when
they're young. That's what laid the foundation for future good decision making. So, even
if our child seems like their making the wrong decisions now, we can take heart and have
hope that the lessons that we teach and the way that we live our lives will be the things
that they hold on too when they need it most. I would love to share more information about
self-government with you because understanding the concept of self-government and self-control
is going to help you control your self better and help them control themselves better too.
So, if you like this video, I'm pretty sure you're going to love my next video which is
all about self-government called What is The First Step in Effective Parenting?