There is a difference between efficient parenting
and effective parenting. And this video is going to be all about
what is the first step in effective parenting.
I'm Nicholeen Peck and I am a self-government and parenting
expert. I travel all over the world teaching
people the skills and principles of mastering themselves and helping their
children learn self-government too.
So, what does efficient parenting look like? Efficient parenting looks like
everything happens according to the schedule.
"It's time to go and everybody needs to get their stuff and get out the door
and we need to get everything happening all at once.
How many things can we do in a day all at once? What is our huge
list of things or maybe get the chores done
quicker so that we can have fun sooner." These are all mindsets for efficient
parents. They don't want to spend a lot of time
doing the tasks that need to be done related to the family.
Also, many parents try to talk to their children
in really short ways. This is also considered efficient. So, you see those
parents who go... "One,
two, three..." There's hardly any words that came out
yet for some reason that's considered parenting. That's considered
good communication to stop a child from making a mistake.
This is efficient because you don't have to say as many words.
But it's definitely not effective. So, what is effective parenting? Effective
means that a person actually experiences a change of heart.
That a person feels a desire to want to be good,
to want to do something better, to want to improve.
If a parent is effective, they have a good tie or bond
with the heart of their child. They have good understanding,
good communication. And that parent is not afraid of taking the time it
takes and saying the words it takes. I remember
telling my husband, "You know, every time we're going to leave somewhere, there's
always a shoe that's missing. Or a bag we can't find or something."
I've got 4 children I think I deserve a 10 minute grace period
for every child that I have because we have to handle problems.
So, if I'm 40 minutes late somewhere i am technically on time.
My husband who really likes to be on time was like,
"Well, I mean i see how that makes sense, I guess."
But now that doesn't mean you can't be on time. I know some people who pride
themselves on their efficiency probably cringe at the thought of that.
But as a young mother with toddlers and little children
running around and tantrums that needed to be solved,
I was not going to sell my role as mother
for the clock, for getting somewhere on time.
Impressing other people with my promptness
was not more important than the teaching moment that I needed to have with my
child. So, what is effective parenting really?
It's parenting that is based in priorities.
What is the priority of your parenting moment that you're having?
It's to touch the heart of your child, right? To help them see truth,
to want something better, to love you more.
To feel a deeper attachment and connection to you.
When I correct my children, I remind myself
that I should feel closer to my children during
and after a correction than I even did before.
Which means I need to take the time that it takes.
But this does not mean that we lecture because lectures are very ineffective
and we're going for effective. Children only listen to what the parents
have to say for a certain period of time or if it seems
pertinent or relevant or if it makes sense.
If parents go on and on trying to extract
some emotion or feeling out of the child, the child will feel manipulated and then
your parenting didn't change their heart even if it did slightly change their
behavior and that means it wasn't effective.
Effective parenting means the heart and behavior is changed
and the bonding remains intact. So, what is the very first step in effective
parenting? The first step is self governing
yourself. If you don't have control or government over yourself then you will
not be able to reach the hearts of your children. Because you'll be trapped
in your own thoughts, your own emotions, your own reactions
that keep acting as your stumbling blocks
again and again and again. 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
behaviors so that you can control them. So, what that means is that you decide
ahead of time who is it that I ought to be? How ought I
to behave to keep myself in harmony with my principles and my values?
And then what skills do I need in order to make sure
that I can keep myself in alignment with those skills and values.
Then I evaluate myself again and again to see
how i'm doing at maintaining this course or this plan
that I set myself out to accomplish at the very beginning.
And a person who's self-governed makes plan after plan
and analyzes again and again. And they find this process
healthy, not intimidating or scary or somehow an attack
on who they really are. Many people don't like to analyze themselves. They don't
like to accept criticism from themselves or others.
They don't like to accept consequences. They don't like to hear if they've ever
done anything wrong. These people are putting up a wall so
that they cannot even see the option of self-government. A
person who is self-governed is humble and they know that they need
to continually work on improving themselves,
recognizing their heirs and honestly declaring that
those things are problems that need to be fixed.
So, that's number 1. Our first lesson is how are we going to govern ourselves.
That's huge. We need skills. There are skills we teach
the children like how to follow instructions, accept no answers, accept
consequences and disagree appropriately. But did you
know those same 4 skills which i call the 4 basic
skills in my teaching self-government parenting course
are 4 skills that we need as parents too?
We've got to know how to give ourselves a no-answer when we want to explode
and be reactionary. We want, we need to know how to give ourselves an
instruction. When we know that we've got to get up in
the morning, we've got to get those tasks done around
the house or help that child one more time in the
middle of the night. And part of following those instructions.
The second step to ever following an instruction
is keeping a calm face voice and body. Do we always keep a calm face voice and
body? What about when we're correcting our
children or when we're disagreeing with our spouse? Do we self-govern us?
Are we in enough control of ourselves that we can express ourselves fully?
Have full openness of communication and understanding
but not emotionally abuse or dump on another person?
I hope so. I hope we can do that we need skills for that. There are
5 different parenting skills that we teach in the teaching self-government
parenting course that help parents learn how to govern
themselves first and foremost. Calmness truly
is part of self-government. In fact, a person cannot be self-governed
without having calmness. So, you've got to have a plan. You've got to
have tools for how you will be calm when a
situation seems like it is going to be hard to be
calm in. Well, I have a special gift for you
that is going to help with just that. And it is a gift. It is completely free.
It is called the Calm Parenting Toolkit. It is a course that you can have
that will help you develop some of your calm parenting skills
so that you can have this first step of effective parenting down. So,
go down in the description below this video
and find the link that says Calm Parenting Toolkit.
Go to that Calm Parenting Toolkit. Get your free toolkit
and start that first step today.