Hi, I'm Nicholeen Peck and I teach about parenting and good communication all over the world
through the lens of the principle. And in this video we're going to be
talking about how a child's relationships with mothers and fathers are different.
In this video, we're going to be talking about what the difference is between that child, mother
and child father relationship and what parents can do to increase bonding. The truth of the
situation is a child has a different relationship with their mother than they do with their father.
That's just how it is. Gender does play in for the relationships that the children develop and
I think this is by design really. I mean, a child cannot get here without a mother and a father.
That's just the truth of the situation and I think that there's some good design there because
they get something different from their mother than they get from their father. Their loyalty to
mother and father also changes throughout their life too, and that's very interesting to note.
So when they're very little, loyalty is almost all toward mother and a little toward dad. And
then as they get older, they start to develop more of a loyalty toward father, and sometimes
even act like they're kind of turning on mother a little bit as they attach more to father. And
then once they get fully matured, then they start recognizing how to create that bond where they can
have attachment with both equally as powerfully. But it takes time. Children do really learn a lot
as they progress through their relationships with their mother and father. So let's talk about what
do they get from mother and what do they get from gather. So if we wanted to sum it up as short as
we can, then I would say children look to their mother for wisdom. They look to their father for
acceptance. They look to their mother for wisdom, their father for acceptance. Now, this should be
a little revelatory to people like, whoa. So if they're looking to mother for wisdom and she's
constantly talking about how stressed she is and all the things she has to do and whatever,
then they are thinking that life is stress, that everybody experiences it like that, and that we
need to tiptoe around things so that we don't set people off. Okay? That's the wisdom they're
gaining from mom if that's the way she projects herself to people, or if she's constantly talking
about the negative components of somebody's emotional health. So if they come to their mom,
mom, I'm having a problem, and she enables the problem, or basically says, yeah, that's how it
is. You feel that way, and darn it, that stinks and let's hate your friend because of that. Well,
that would be horrible wisdom to give to a child. It's not empowering. Sure, it validates the child
but it definitely leaves a child in a position of being stuck. She would not be giving the wisdom
that she needed to. So instead of wise mother would say, yes, you're feeling that that way.
Let's talk about why you might be feeling that way, and let's talk about how to help you through
this so you don't have this problem in the future. That's what a really wise mother is going to do.
She's going to be constantly trying to liberate her children from ignorance again and again,
and this is why she has them do chores. Mothers are so into chores and dads are like, eh, if we
get it done, we do and if not, whatever, unless the dads are really Type A, but mothers are like,
we got to get the chores done. Okay, we got to do these things. We have to have dinner prep and
dinner, cleanup and all these things because she wants to liberate her children from ignorance. She
wants to liberate them from laziness. She wants to make sure that they have all of this wisdom that
they need. And so then all the way along, dad is just showering them with giggles and tickles and
wrestling and laughing and that doesn't mean he never works with them because he does. But
when they do a job and dad tells them they do a good job on that job, they feel good because
dad's big and he's strong and he knows how to work really hard. And so if dad says, wow, you did that
really well, I think you could do this more often, they're like, whew, I've been accepted by dad.
That's super important. So what happens if dad is not in the picture, that acceptance that the
child is looking for is not there. Well, we know statistically, if you look at the social science
and the data, we know what happens when dad isn't in the picture and how the children suffer,
not just their grades, but they end up getting oftentimes into more substance abuse, more
hopelessness, more depression, more disconnection, more failed relationships. Lots of things happen
in the life of a child when they don't have that acceptance from father that they really need and
they're looking for. So it's huge. But dad will also accept their efforts. Now, if dad is tearing
a child down all the time because maybe he's like type A personality, super nitpicky, clean freak,
whatever, micromanager, and he's tearing the child down all the time and the child can't ever measure
up or get that acceptance from the father, then the child is also going to feel isolated and end
up looking to other sources for father figures, which is not really great. So if that whole look
for a father figure means looking for acceptance. When a girl ends up dating a guy that she should
not be dating that is bad for her, and everybody's like, why are you dating that guy? He's horrible.
But if he's like, no, you're amazing, honey, and you're so beautiful. And so she's looking for what
she wished her daddy always would've said lots of times, you're so beautiful, you're so talented,
you do so many great things. So this is why it's actually easy sometimes for bad guys to get into
girls, especially if they haven't had a good daddy figure who's shown them proper acceptance in their
life. What do mothers and fathers give very unique gifts to their children? Their children
are looking to them for different things. When my children want to sort their problems out in life,
they usually call me. When they're just wanting to talk to somebody about something that's going on,
maybe ask a quick question and have a few laughs. Then they're going to call dad and that doesn't
mean I don't laugh or have a fun personality, it's just that that's what they're looking for.
If they want it quick, they call dad. If they want to really talk about something,
they call mom and that's what happens now that they're grown, that I've noticed. So they still
kind of look for those things and they still want their hugs and cuddles for mom and dad,
but those ones from Dad, I can tell as a mom do seem to mean something a little bit different.
So what do we do then to work on our bonding so that we can make sure that the children get
what they need and quite frankly, so that we get what we need too. So we're going to talk about
how to improve our bonding with our children, but before we do, click that subscribe button,
that button opens up a door of information for you about self-government that will help you become
a better version of you. That button is power. So push the button now. So let's talk about ways that
we bond. There's physical bonding, and so that's touching another person and when you physical
bond with another person that actually releases certain chemicals in your brain, so there's that
oxytocin that's released in your brain, and that's what they call the love chemical. So this is where
you feel like you're loved by another person. It creates an instant connection even if you didn't
have a connection before. If you hug someone, it creates a connection. This is why when people are
trying to unify groups of people like athletes or people who are going to do a play together,
maybe for drama or something like that, they say, let's all hug everybody. Go around and
start hugging because it creates this instant bond. Sure, it's somewhat synthetic because
we're just releasing oxytocin from the brain, but it does create a connection.
So if you're not a toucher and you want to improve the bond with your children, you might have to
become a toucher. Decide how you're going to touch more. Pat on the shoulder, pat on the back, hug to
the side. But you know what? If you can just give 'em a full on hug, and if they don't like it, just
do it anyway. That's what you need to do. They might give you a "no" answer about it.
They might even have anxiety about it or decide they want to keep you at a distance,
but it is healthy and normal for family members to hug each other so long as it doesn't cross
over any sexual boundaries or anything like that. Of course, anyway, hugging is one way to bond,
probably the quickest way to bond, although it's not the deepest way to bond because it does just
release that one chemical short term. Okay, short term, although you do remember how good it felt,
you remember the closeness as well. Okay, so now there's the logical bond. Okay, so there's, well,
I know that I should be bonded with you, so I am going to choose to bond with you. Even though we
don't get along, I am going to choose to get along right now. So this is the logical bond. This is
a pretty powerful bond because it's actually you saying, even if it doesn't feel perfect right now,
I'm picking it. I'm picking to bond and here's why and I give myself a reason for why I am
going to bond with my parent or why I'm going to bond with my child and sometimes when the child
is being incredibly inconvenient, as parents, we have to say, no, I have to have a bond with
this child. So I'm not going to allow myself to become offended by this behavior. Instead,
I'm going to stay calm and I'm going to teach them, and I'm going to let them know that I
love them. So that's the logical bond where you tell yourself what needs to happen and then you
follow through and sometimes when you're talking with someone, you get that feeling of that logical
bond. You're convinced through conversation that you have a really great bond with the person.
Then there's the heart bond, that heart bond is that deep, deep thing that is really hard
to ruin. In fact, that deep love, that deep heart bond is actually what paves the way for the most
extreme disappointment or even hate. It's hard to hate something that you didn't once love or trust
in the first place. So that love bond that is so deep is something that even if mistakes happen,
it still exists there. Now, lucky for us, God made people so that when they come to this world,
they immediately have this incredible attachment to their mothers. There's a physical attachment to
their mothers. They also have a logical attachment because they don't have very much logic at all.
And so it's just like, I need, I need, I need, but then mom's there to provide the need and she's
made to provide the needs for her children. But then there is this feeling of connection. I mean,
down to that's the smell of my mom, that's the sound of my mom. That's my comfort place. That is
the person where I feel like everything is okay. That's how children are created, and that goes
to a very deep, deep level inside of them. Their whole heart is not okay if they don't know where
mom is, it gets them starting to panic a little bit and we see this as babies get just a little
bit older and they have that separation anxiety or that fear of being with another person. It's
actually a healthy thing to witness because what they're saying is, no, that's my person and I love
that person more than anybody else, and I don't even want to love anybody else. That's my person.
And that's the power that a mother has actually over her children. But you know what happens is
over time sometimes, that bond can end up getting damaged by selfishness and by some of our feelings
or even extreme circumstances like trauma. What do you do to fix that bond because sometimes
we can go through a hard thing and our bond can be damaged. I can't even tell you how many parents at
this point in the game for me have come to me and said, I had a really traumatic birth experience
with one of my children, and the toddler that was right before didn't get the bonding he needed and
I know that's a problem or my daughter, we went through a situation with her dad going to prison
or whatever it was, and she didn't get a bond with him and now she doesn't trust him, and now
there's this problem. And so things like that, that people experience and they end up having
issues with bonding throughout their lives, not just with their parents, but sometimes even with
other people. So what you need to do is always be connected with the heart. So when you're teaching
your children, when you're correcting your children, talking to your children, there should
be this calmness where you're okay with who you're talking to and even what's going on right now,
you're not going to take it personally, but also as you're talking to them, you're
going to be thinking, I love you. I love you. Of course, saying, I love you too and praising the
other person, telling them the things are doing good, those are all things that are evidence of
a heart bond. But also just thinking it, thinking you're offended changes your bond toward them,
and they feel it. They feel the detachment, but thinking that you love them, even if you're not
there with them, changes the bond and opens the door to increase bonding. So that's huge. I hope
that you recognize the power of that as you try it. So next time somebody is bothering you or
you have to correct a problem with your child, be thinking, I love you. This is okay. This is part
of life. I'm going to help you through it and if you can think that and then go into a correction,
your correction is going to go a whole lot better and your connection to the child will be improved
because of the moment you have of correction instead of the opposite. If you'd like this video,
there is another video I highly recommend going to next, and that is the video called The Not So
Known Secret for Parenting Success. It's a full length class. It will talk about a lot of the
skills of self-government that you can now add on to what you've learned here in this video to
improve your connection and communication with your children and your confidence in
your parenting. So go to the not so known secret for parenting success. Now. I'll see you there.