I instructed my daughter to sweep the floor. She said, “OK Mom, but I don’t know how.” This surprised me. She had seen me sweep the floor so many times, that I forgot she might not even know how to accomplish the task.So, I told her exactly how to do it. It’s needs to be the same when telling your child what to say.

Posted by Nicholeen Peck on May 25, 2008

When andhow do yougiveconsequences? For example,if youinstruct yourson to go clean his room (assuming you’ve prepped him for accepting a consequence) and he whines and says, “I don’t want to do it right now.” What do you say?

Posted by Nicholeen Peck on June 27, 2008

Let’s be careful not to bully our children into not being bullies. In a recent Huffington Post article a mother talked about how she taught her daughter”to damn well treat people right.” (Sorry for the language. That washer exact quote.) In the article the motherthreatened her daughter with no ride to school if the daughter didn’t include another girl in her friend group. In the end, the girls became friends and the daughter learned: “…her initial instinct about people isn’t always correctly motivated.” And that “…you can be friends with the least likely people; the best friendships aren’t people that are your ‘type!’In the world of friendship, contrast is a plus…” While I understand the point of the article is to promote inclusion of others, I have to “disagree appropriately” on a few things. First, teaching children not to follow their instincts can be dangerous for them. Instincts stop many …

What If Your Child Is A Bully? Read More »

Posted by Nicholeen Peck on April 25, 2016

I recently asked a group of 10-year-old children what kinds of negative consequences their families have. “At our house, we sweep the floor and clean,” said one boy. “Mom gets mad and goes into a bad mood,” said another boy. “Mom used to send us to time out, but we don’t do that anymore,” said a thoughtful girl. I asked her what they do for negative consequences now. She thought for a minute and said, “I guess Mom just does whatever she can think of to control us. Sometimes we get soap in our mouths when we say bad words, sometimes she gets really grumpy and makes life hard for us, and sometimes she takes our stuff away,” she replied. Negative Consequences Shouldn’t Be Bad I then asked the children if they thought negative consequences are bad. Most of the children in the room said, “Yes” before the first little …

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Posted by Monica Pond on July 18, 2018

The Norton’s Following Instructions https://vimeo.com/79351576 The Norton’s Accepting Consequences https://vimeo.com/79351574 Siblings Disagree Appropriately Over Computer Last week my post was about sibling rivalry. Here is a movie which shows how knowing to Disagree Appropriately is a skill which helps sibling rivalry. https://vimeo.com/82252485 This sibling rivalry solution video was filmed while I was doing some private self-government teaching for a family. I thought the children did very well with their new skills! It is hard to learn new stuff. But, both children will have much more happiness now that they understand that disagreeing appropriately is for their relationship as well as their relationships with Mom and Dad. I want to thank the family for allowing me to share this footage. I especially liked that this situation happened about such a common subject in homes these days; sharing the computer. Families lives revolve more and more around the computer; especially as they …

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Posted by Pennie Rumsey on May 10, 2013

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. This means that each person decides what type of person they ought to be and plans for how to become this person. When, as it always does, the person falls off the path to success a bit, the person recognizes what has happened and then corrects his course to maintain his desired direction. This is what it means to master yourself. June decided that she wanted to improve her health and maybe shed a few pounds. She determined that to accomplish her goal she needed to exercise more. So, she planned to walk before work each morning for 45 minutes. At first June did great. She awoke one hour earlier and walked daily for about 10 days. She felt better than ever …

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Posted by Monica Pond on August 9, 2017

“My 2yo has started crying a LOT the past few days. Over every little thing. Nothing is different physically or environmentally that I can tell. He already has his 2yo molars, too.. He’s just been crying about everything that he doesn’t like, with some pretty good tantrums thrown in the mix of the average crying. I tried holding him in timeout (he’s never stayed in time out on his own so far), but he screamed and threw a serious tantrum the whole time.. which wouldn’t be a problem for me except that I have to take care of the other kids, too! I tried holding him in our time-out spot until he was done with the tantrum so I could praise him for being happy, etc., but after 40 minutes of continuous screaming, my baby was also crying, needing to be fed, and the other young kids had destroyed the …

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Posted by Nicholeen Peck on December 30, 2009

I once received a note from a reader about her 14-year-old son who was quite the thinker. He always wanted to know “Why?” about everything, which is wonderful, but it was leading to problems respecting authority.

Posted by Nicholeen Peck on February 14, 2019

I’m in need of some help with my nine-year-old son. He is a major dawdler, and always has been. I am a very efficient person and try to get things done as quickly as possible. See the conflict already? It takes gobs of time for him to do simple things like get dressed, brush teeth, eat breakfast, read his books, and other things that are very simple. He’ll start the task, but then literally just start walking around the house in circles, just doing nothing in particular except dawdling.

Posted by Nicholeen Peck on August 9, 2019

This Call Covers:Keeping the family motivated and productive throughout the school yearDevelopmental changes in teenagers and how to prevent selfishnessPotty training multiple children at once

Posted by Nicholeen Peck on September 6, 2019

This call covers: Becoming a joyful adult yourself. Easy going to control freak toddler. Manipulative and controlling son. Young son pees all over things and won’t be patient. He does it purposely sometimes. Daughter needs to wear glasses and eye patch, but doesn’t like to because she gets teased by step family and others. Son has new phone for a few days and already has looked at porn sites. How to address that.

Posted by Nicholeen Peck on October 7, 2016

This Call Covers: How to help children “bust” their boredom Dealing with perfectionism Making a mission Statement Helping children to stop fighting with each other

Posted by Nicholeen Peck on September 22, 2017