Some parents tell me that parenting feels like a battle zone.
They say they go to bed every night feeling like they just fought world war
3. Well, it doesn't have to be that way. In
fact, I feel rejuvenated and fueled by the
interactions that i have with my children
I'm Nicholeen peck and I want to teach you how to
stop those power struggles from happening
so that you can have that type of environment where
everybody feels happy.
So, why don't I have power struggles with my children? Well, that's because
we understand communication and we have deliberately decided
how we want to communicate as a family. I'll tell you one of the byproducts
of having this type of deliberate conversation with your children
is that at the end of the day, you have more energy,
not less. In fact, if you feel like you are emotionally drained
because you fought world war 3 at your house,
you're going to be excited about some of the information and skills that we're
going to share in this video. What a lot of parents don't know is that
they start power struggles just as often if not
more often than their children do. They recognize when it
seems like the child is opposing them in some way.
But they don't always go back far enough to realize
that it might have been them that actually started the power struggle.
Sometimes we get stressed or short-tempered.
We say things we shouldn't have said. We give looks
that we shouldn't have given. And all of a sudden, people
jump to the defensive. Any time a person is power struggling, it's
usually because one person either has said accusatory
words or has had a tone that seems like
they're accusing someone of something. Whether it's not understanding, not
caring, doing the wrong thing. It could be any of
those things. So, we know in our family
that there is cardinal rule number one. Cardinal rule number one is we never
talk to anyone unless they are calm first. There is a reason for that.
In fact, it is a chemical and biological reason.
So, when you're thinking clearly, you have almost all of your processing capability
up in the front part of your brain. Your prefrontal
cortex can problem solve, sort, put pieces together. But the
more emotional you get or the more angry you get, then you go
into the mid or back brain. When you're in mid brain, you have about
mid processing capability. When you're in
back brain, you have hardly any ability to
problem solve with the front. Your emotions have
taken completely over. When someone is in mid
brain or back brain, I'm not going to problem solve with them
yet. That's one of my rules. I started this rule when i was doing
foster care for youth ages 12 to 18. Many of them had anger control issues we
had to be consistent and help them solve their problems. But
we could not be power struggling with them
all the time. In fact, I wanted them to have a change
of heart, not just a change of behavior. Which
meant I had to wait for a time that i could actually appeal to their
heart. If things aren't making sense when someone's talking to you,
you're not going to have a change of heart.
So, the rule was if they're out of control
or going out of control then I would always say
the same phrase. It was a trigger phrase. A phrase that would remind them to
take some breaths, get calm and come back into control.
That trigger phrase sounded like this: "t seems to me you want to tell me
something. I want to know what that is. But we need
to choose to be calm first then we can talk about it." Now, for sure,
some people when they're going out of control
and you say that, they're going to say, "I don't care.
No. So what?" And then you can just say, "I can see you're still trying to tell me
something." You might even say, "I see you're trying
to tell me that you don't want to get calm. But we
need to choose to be calm first. Otherwise we can't talk about it." And
that's all you say. You don't talk back to the person
and you don't problem solve with them while they are
out of control. And if they know that is your
cardinal rule number 1, then their argument and their anger will
only go so far. In fact, it will end up only hurting them
and they'll know it. So, soon there doesn't seem to be a point
in holding on to that type of emotion and
anger. When the BBC came to our family in 2009 and asked us if we would take in
2 troubled teens from england both ages 17,
James and Hannah were their names. And if we would treat them like
members of our family no matter what baggage
they brought with them, we actually consented to do it as crazy as it sounds.
Well, when they came, they did not know how to be calm.
They did not know that they were power struggling
every single time that something didn't go their way.
We had to teach them that. The first thing we did
was teach them how we would handle their power struggles
and what skills they needed to know. So, these books
each teach the 4 basic skills which we taught
to James and Hannah. Now, I know they look like children's books. Maybe a little
babyish looking. We didn't read them these stories at the
time. We just taught them the skills contained in these books
because every person needs the 4 basic skills which are how to follow
instructions, accept no answers, accept consequences
and disagree appropriately. Then we taught them how we would correct
the problems if they chose not to be calm
and not to do these 4 basic skills. We showed them this
process. So, you can see there's a light side
and a dark side. The light side means we're making good choices.
The dark side means we might be going down the wrong track.
So, we showed them this is how we'll give you an instruction,
this is how we'll correct it and when. If you choose to disagree appropriately or
accept your consequence, you can go over here.
But if not, then this will come next, this will come next.
We told them all the words we would ever say to them if they chose to
go completely out of control. We taught them the skills that they would need for
communication. We taught them how we would fix the
situation if things were going wrong and we taught
them the 4 different types of communication. There are 4
different ways that people communicate with each other to solve problems.
3 of the 4 ways are power struggles
and are manipulative. There is only one way
that is not a power struggle. That one way
is called assertive communication. Assertive communication is a type of
communication when you prepare ahead of time how you
will solve your problems. You learn the skills you need, you plan
the words you'll say. You even plan the tone and the
investment that you'll have with the other person. You plan to love
them. Give them the benefit of the doubt. Look into their heart. Be understanding,
have compassion. Those are all assertive things that a
person does. But they also know exactly what words to
say when a situation arises. So that they're
prepared. Now, what are those other three styles of
communication? They're words you've probably heard of
before but we don't usually recognize all of them as power struggles. The first
one is aggressive communication. Aggressive
communication is when a person tries to control
another person. When they try to force an issue. With the
power of their voice, the power of their will or the power
of their body. So, hitting, spanking, yelling, gripping,
spitting, biting. Parents and children all use aggressive communication. Well I
shouldn't say they all use it, should I? But they all can use it if they want to.
Most people learn that aggressive communication
looks a little ridiculous especially once they get a little more mature.
This is why when children hit the ages of
12 to 18, they start doing something called
the attitude problem. The attitude problem
is passive-aggressive communication. This type of communication is when
they try to get their weight and control by having an
attitude. And instead of going completely out of control and yelling
and hitting and stuff like that. Now, normally with people
who choose passive aggressive communication, they will actually try
all different types of aggressive communication and passive communication
if the passive aggressive communication doesn't work.
That is a mouthful. So, anyway, what they do is they try to have an
attitude. When that doesn't work, they get more aggressive, more loud, more
angry. Then they might turn to passive
communication. That's our third communication style
that is a manipulative power struggling type of communication.
Passive communication is when you become the victim.
So, then the person might be like, "You never care, you don't like me, you
hate me." You know? Those types of things. They become the victim.
That's the whining, complaining, excuses. That's another type of power struggling.
In fact, that's the one type of power struggling that people fall for the very
most. Because it's easy to get drawn into that
pitiful emotion. "Oh, no! Honey, I love you. I don't hate you.
Don't think that." When parents start doing that,
they're coddling their children and they're actually participating
in a power struggle. So, what should parents do
instead? Parents should communicate in an assertive
way if they don't want a power struggle. Which means
they've got to use their skills. One of the skills that parents need a
master is the skill of correcting behaviors.
Which is not about reacting to behaviors but it's about proactively preparing
what to say before the situation ever arises.
So, how do we avoid these power struggles? We use the skills
that i already talked about. One of the biggest skills that helps with
understanding which is usually a reason why people start power struggling is
because they get anxious and they feel like you don't understand.
The skill they need for that is disagreeing appropriately. When a
person disagrees appropriately, they look at the person,
they keep a calm face voice and body. They say that they understand the other
person's point of view then they share their point of view. They
listen to what the person has to say and then they say okay and drop the
subject. The skills works for any relationship.
I've used it with people at airports, people with stores,
my husband. I've used it with my mother, with my children.
It works for everyone. It's respectful communication
that appeals to logic it's a very mature assertive communication style. This helps
them seek to understand other people and be understood.
Which is a great principle of communication. When a person is going to
choose not to power struggle, that means they're
going to disengage that emotional part of the
brain, you've got to replace that with
something else. Which means the skill has to come in to fill the
place that normally would be used by the emotion. Stopping power struggles
means that you have to do a correction.
Consistency is required. You have to catch every power struggle,
correct it and point it in the right direction. If
you let some of the power struggles go and you don't handle them, you're going
to have a harder time avoiding those power struggles in the
future. We're all creatures of habit which means consistency is key.
So, how do you do a proper correction? I'll give you a clue. You don't use
emotional reactions. Instead you use your skills again. You use your
logic. One of the skills that I start every
correction with is a description. Right after I say, "It seems to me that
you want to tell me something. I want to know what that is. But we need
to choose to be calm first then we can talk about it."
Then I go straight into a correction. "Just now, I gave you a no answer.
You looked at me but you did not keep a calm face voice and body.
You didn't say okay or ask to disagree appropriately.
And you didn't drop the subject. What you should have done was
you should have dropped the subject. You should have kept a calm face voice and
body. And you should have said okay or chosen
to disagree appropriately." Since you chose not to, you've earned an
extra chore. I talk in other videos about
consequences or some people call them punishments.
And why I use extra chores. It's a powerful consequence
and there's reasons. I don't have time to go into that now. But that's our main
negative consequence at our house and it's great for character building
and taking personal ownership over your behavior. The main way that you
avoid power struggles is by infusing the family with calmness.
It starts with yourself. You have to be calm or at least be heading in the
direction of calmness. If you are going toward
calmness, your children will be calm too. They'll
feel like that's the direction and it feels safe to go that way.
Many people need a little help finding their calmness. Calmness is power.
And we know that when we meet a truly calm person
who isn't ruffled by little things. Who isn't stressed
who doesn't try to control. Yet for some reason
they have such great influence. You can be that person. You might just
need a few more skills, a little bit of training to help you
along the way. I think you're going to enjoy
my Calm Parenting Toolkit. And i'm going to give it to you for
free. If you click the link in the description below that says Calm
Parenting Toolkit, you can have it for free. The whole
purpose of everything I do is to heal homes, to heal hearts
and to strengthen families. In this day and age,
that is what we need more than anything else.
The world is power struggling, have you noticed? There are
wars in homes, there are wars online. There are
wars everywhere. The people need the healing
influence that comes from calmness and connection
that can happen in families. Your children need that.
You can provide that for them. The Calm Parenting Toolkit is my gift to
you and to the world. We need healing,
we need truth, we need unity. It starts in the family. Click on the
link below and get yourself some extra tools that
you might need for success.