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Why You’re Not Your Daughter’s Best Friend
“What do you want your relationship with your child to be like?” I asked a group of dedicated parents attending one of my Teaching Self-Government workshops. “I just want to be my daughter’s friend,” said one mother, “but she doesn’t treat me like one, even though I try so hard.” “Who doesn’t want to have a great, friendly relationship with their child?” I replied with a knowing smile. “We all do. However, treating your daughter like your best friend is not the way to end up with her as your best friend. I know that sounds kind of backward, but it’s true. This is the reason why you’re not best friends.” The Role of Roles I continued to explain to that mother the importance of roles when it comes to our relationships with our children. Parents have a self-evident role as “The Mother” or “The Father” in their kids’ lives. …
Posted by Nicholeen Peck on July 28, 2015
What Is Destroying Family Bonding?
There is an international parent/child bonding problem. The world has never seen a global lack of parent/child attachment like this before. Of course, there are factors leading to this detachment, factors that the world has also never seen before. Are we experimenting on our families and children and calling it good leadership? Have we given up our roles in the family for social conformity, loss of identity, and cluelessness? I know I’m not going to win many points with diligent, loving parents by calling them clueless. I’m not intending to be mean, but every day I see video after video that laughs at what parents don’t know. Comedians and YouTubers have never-ending fodder for their acts if parenting is continually equal to a joke. If parents are overly tough, people will laugh. If parents are passive, people will laugh. If parents are worn out and have attitude problems, people will …
Posted by Monica Pond on November 1, 2017
The Illusion of Innocence Facing Today’s Children
In a world full of sexual depravity, diverse addictions, familial dysfunction, lascivious social platforms, manipulative media, and irate people of all ages, is it possible to even hope for our children to have an innocent upbringing? A routine trip through a store like Walmart, for example, can start a child’s brain processing in sexual and dysfunctional directions. What is a parent to do about this problem? How can a family live in the world but not become part of all the lewdness and cruelty so many people in society are laughing at? The Illusion of Innocence: Living in the World For many years I’ve taken my children, and often other children I teach, to the Utah Shakespeare Festival. Every time prior to attending, I call the festival and check to be sure the play is developmentally appropriate for children and will preserve their innocence. This year I asked the usual …
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Posted by Monica Pond on November 16, 2017
Teen-Culture and the Land of Make Believe
Historically, as young people approached the age of 18, they would start to spread their wings and transition into adulthood by stepping outside of their comfort zones. Sadly, times have changed.Today, many teens are feeling increasingly more inadequate to attempt adult tasks. In fact, they often don’t even feel comfortable talking to adults. In the midst of this fragility epidemic, many teens don’t see that the answer to their “feeling-inadequate-for-adult-life problem” is staring them right in the face.Their parents.Dr. Leonard Sax, author of “The Collapse of Parenting,” said: “The parent-child relationship differs from the relationship between same-age peers.” This statement contradicts the once “revolutionary” parenting belief perpetuated by Dr. Benjamin Spock that parents should treat their children like friends with equal roles, instead of like children who need a parent’s love and nurturing.Sax continues: “The child expects to look up to the parent, to be instructed by the parent, indeed, …
Posted by Monica Pond on July 9, 2019
Support call 9-9-21
Whole call: CC Notes 9-9-2021 https://s3.amazonaws.com/1-SupportCalls/2021/09september/9-9-21/tsg-sc-9-9-21wholeEdited.mp3 Question: I started listening to your Parenting in a Tech/Sexual world course and it has been really enlightening. Thank you for providing that as a resource to us as parents! I haven’t gotten through the third and fourth sections yet but one thing I have started doing in my family is doing better to limit when kids are able to be on screens and being more consistent about the rule that they can’t take screens into their rooms and they have to be on a screen where others can see them. This has really changed things for our family and I appreciate what I’ve learned from you and from other parents in the group about how to keep kids safe. I feel like we are making progress even though it can hard to be consistent sometimes but I have still noticed a difference. We …
Posted by Nicholeen Peck on September 9, 2021
Support call 9-22-21
Whole call: CC Notes 9-22-2021 https://s3.amazonaws.com/1-SupportCalls/2021/09september/9-22-21/tsg-sc-9-22-21WholeEdited.mp3 Question: When the following situation occurred we had not trained the children on rule of 3 yet, we were just giving chores as consequences. My 6 year old was mad and grabbed a kitchen knife and started sawing the wooden dinning room table and stabbing the table in a passive aggressive manner for just negative attention. I knew that trying to remove objects out of his hands would mean engaging in a power struggle even if I did it calmly but obviously I needed to keep him and us safe so I chose to calmly remove it from his hands and he actually allowed me to do it. Is that engaging in power struggle? How would you handle situations like this? Earlier that day I was in my bedroom with my daughter and he started banging on the door hard and I told him …
Posted by Nicholeen Peck on September 24, 2021
Support call 9-15-21
Whole call: CC Notes 9-15-2021 https://s3.amazonaws.com/1-SupportCalls/2021/09september/9-15-21/tsg-sc-9-15-21WholeEdited.mp3 Question: I’m looking for an article I read on the TSG website that I can’t seem to find. It was about how children become entitled. It talked about how when we do something nice for a child, we expect them to then want to do something nice for us. But really, this is an adult stage of development. Some children, Instead of wanting to reciprocate the kindness, will just come to expect special treatment. Can you please help me find this article? I believe I fell into this trap when our kids were teenagers. I wonder if I didn’t understand where they were at developmentally and let them get away with behavior I should have corrected. I have ended up with an extremely entitled 17-year-old. We do not have a great relationship and I would like to work on it. The problem is that …
Posted by Nicholeen Peck on September 15, 2021
Support call 9-1-21
Whole call: CC Notes 9-1-2021 https://s3.amazonaws.com/1-SupportCalls/2021/09september/8-1-21/tsg-sc-9-1-21-Whoeledited.mp3 Question: My question is about friends verses family time. My family is my priority and yet we have a large amount of friend time. The trouble I’m having is that when I say no to friends but don’t have anything really meaningful going on around the house I seem to give in to the friend time. They all seem a little down and tired when we do have family time which lends itself to wanting to watch a movie. Honestly, sometimes it’s a welcomed request because I’m tired too and want a break. If all we do together is watch a movie to rest for the next “event” then I know we are really missing out on vital relationships. Unfortunately I don’t know where to draw the line. I have 2 16 yo and 2 10yo if that helps to get an idea of …
Posted by Nicholeen Peck on September 1, 2021
Support Call 8-5-20
Whole Call: https://s3.amazonaws.com/1-SupportCalls/2020/08August/TSG_SC_8-5-20_WholeEdited.mp3 Question: My 5 year old son keeps hitting his 3 year old sister. I think it’s just because he gets annoyed, but I’d like it to stop. She can get in his business sometimes and ruin his toy set up and stuff. This is when it usually happens. I kind of feel like he’s justified and that the 3 year old needs to learn. But, I’m sure letting him hit isn’t a good way to teach either of them self-government. What would you suggest I do to handle this situation? Answer: https://s3.amazonaws.com/1-SupportCalls/2020/08August/TSG_SC_8-5-20_Q1.mp3 Pre-teach both about Accepting “no” answers and disagreeing appropriately. Then, correct them both, and praise them both. You may want to stay closer by for a while too, to catch them and help them disagree appropriately and learn to problem solve. Question: My daughter, age 16, is telling me she has social anxiety/depression. …
Posted by Nicholeen Peck on August 9, 2020
Support Call 8-4-21
Whole call: CC Notes 8-4-2021 https://s3.amazonaws.com/1-SupportCalls/2021/08August/8-4-21/tsg-sc-8-4-12WholeEdited.mp3 Question: My 23 month old has developed the habit of fussing. A low level whining all the time instead of talking. What is the best way for me to address this? Answer: https://s3.amazonaws.com/1-SupportCalls/2021/08August/8-4-21/tsg-sc-8-4-12Q1.mp3 I’m guessing that since you said “instead of talking” that your child usually uses sentences or words to communicate and that this is a new development. There could be multiple reasons this could happen. The child could feel like he gets quicker results from you when he shows signs of sadness. He could just be not in the mood to communicate, or not want to put forth the effort; so laziness. He could want attention. He could be hungry, tired, sick or bored. What to do about it. Teach calm voice, face, and body. Practice what those look like and feel like. Teach him the word whining and what it means …
Posted by Nicholeen Peck on August 7, 2021
Support call 8-25-21
Whole call: CC Notes 8-25-2021 https://s3.amazonaws.com/1-SupportCalls/2021/08August/8-25-21/tsg-sc-8-25-21whole+edited.mp3 Question: What do you do when a child earns an extra chore but you can tell they are holding a grudge? I think they are not dropping the subject but continuing to give extra chores doesn’t seem to help. They are not out of control so starting the rule of 3 seems extreme. When the rule of 3 is started they do everything correctly, but their heart is hard. So far we have been working on these kinds of issues with a counseling session after the earned chores are done which is helping. This issue seems to be more common with older children. Answer: https://s3.amazonaws.com/1-SupportCalls/2021/08August/8-25-21/tsg-sc-8-25-21Q1.mp3 This is good analysis. Older children can sometimes feel entitled to do whatever they want. They also have hormonal changes happening which can cause them to take things ore personally. It is true that they are not dropping the …
Posted by Nicholeen Peck on August 26, 2021
Support Call 8-24-18
This Call Covers: Dealing with custody-related parenting problems Rule of three and young children Preventing parental manipulation of children Does TSG make kids worse?
Posted by Nicholeen Peck on August 27, 2018