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Nicholeen Peck

I hear you!

Leave a Comment / All, Using TSG Skills /

“I can understand this, mom! I have a 7 year old who pretty much spent most of his first 5 years in timeout. About 2 years ago, I attended one of Nicholeen’s seminars. We decided to implement the losing of privileges in our family and had a family meeting. We were VERY consistent with this one child that was acting up the most, and today he is one of the most well-behaved! This was no easy task on our part by any means, but it worked. He probably had to lose privileges 15-20 times over the course of a year (yeah, he was a stubborn one) but he doesn’t anymore.

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Mom’s hang-up

1 Comment / All, Relationships, Using TSG Skills, Youth (10-18) /

“Thanks so much for all the wisdom and inspiration you share.  I have a son (age 11) who zapps so much emotional energy from me.  Over the last several months, I’ve really been trying to see things as they are and trying to determine how to handle things.  He is a great kid.  He’s the first one to help a younger sibling who is hurt or to give up his ice cream cone is one of his younger siblings dropped theirs.  He is also the one who complains the most, rolls his eyes back into his head and gets “that look” when things do not go his way.  I know that he is often “out of instructi

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Some Days

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Some days I am running so fast from thing to thing that my full life makes me feel empty.

Some days I have such a long list of things to do that I feel overwhelmed.

Some days I realize I am overwhelmed and empty inside and I decide to to sit on the couch and read to my children instead of going for the super woman award.  These connections fill me up emotionally and help me put things in life into perspective.  It does great things for the children too. 

Life is too short to waste on lists and running around town.  Do something that really matters today.  Connect with your family.  Th

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Using the Rule of Three

Leave a Comment / All, Using TSG Skills, Youth (10-18) /

“Another question I had was, does the rule of 3 start over for each incident? Are the 3 consequences for staying out of instructional control as relating to the first incident? I just want to make sure I understand correctly. So if a child hits his brother, and gets out of instructional control and has the consequences for that earlier in the day, and then later disobeys about something different, the rule of 3 would start over for the later incident, correct? Consequences aren’t cumulative for different offenses, so that because the child got to SODAS with hitting his brothe

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If it’s right, it’s right!

Leave a Comment / All, Relationships, TSG Principles /

The following question and answer deals with something that many families deal with.  In order to raise the kind of family that is going to reach our 20 year vision, we have to make choices that are different from the mainstream of society.  These decisions are full of rewards as well as challenges.  Trust me, the rewards far out-weigh the challenges. 

 “You mention something in the beginning of the first CD that struck me right off and I’ve thought about a lot ever since.  “I’ve often felt that the Lord has chosen me to stand apart from the world.”

I had been feeling the same

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Comment on post below

Leave a Comment / All, Relationships, TSG Principles /

“Thanks!  It helps a lot to know that I can have both personal standards and a family standard, and to hear your experiences.  I think I have been afraid to set an example and refuse things for myself that he wants because I don’t want to start an argument.  But I guess it is all in the way it is done, not trying to manipulate or judge but just to honor my own standards while still respecting my husband.  I appreciate your help!”

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What if my standard is different than my husband’s standard?

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“My husband and I are in the process of making our family standard, and tonight for FHE we are going to ask the kids for ideas.  We already are running into some difficulty though.  My husband and I have different standards as far as media goes.  I agree with him that whatever standard we set needs to be one we will both be willing to follow.  I think the kids will be willing to give up more than he will in the media department.  We are in agreement that R rated shows will never be watched in our home, but other shows he is more ambiguous about.  How should we go about making the

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Mentor Sessions change the tide.

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There are many times when I feel like my children have a different vision of how the day should go than I do.  They want to play around and get distracted and I want to be efficient and get lots of things done.  At these times I feel like my children are miles away from where I need them to be in order to have the house run happily. 

At these times I have found it very useful to take an hour and have small mentor sessions with my children.  We talk about what their goals are for the day and week and we set them up a schedule.  Don’t forget to add some great play time after you have blocked

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Great Comment

Leave a Comment / All, Relationships /

Well I am back from my camping trip now, and back to my computer.  I wrote a post that suggested taking a week off of the computer.  I hope some of your took me up on the challenge.  It is easier said than done, I realize.  Someone left a great comment about the post.  It is definitely worth sharing. 

 “Oh, I need this one! I am always trying to get something ‘done’. I can’t read right now because I’m doing the dishes, or I can’t play a game right now because I’m making lunch… the list goes on and on.

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Should I Medicate?

1 Comment / All, Children (4-10), Using TSG Skills /

“Help! I’ve been browing your website for a couple of days. Trying to find some answers- If I had the $ I’d be sending for the cd’s. But it’s not in the budget right now. I’m totally at my wits end with my 6 yr old.

I don’t know what else to do. He is ADHD- We’ve had him in with a counselor, and I have an appointment to talk about meds this afternoon. I don’t want to do meds for adhd, but I have to try something, because everything I’ve tried isn’t working. He’s only 6! I really don’t want to do meds, but I don’t know what else to try.

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Stop Being so efficient!!!

2 Comments / All, Announcements, Relationships, Youth (10-18) /

Two days ago my son set up all of his little army figures in army formation and came to me and said, “Mom, will you play army with me?” 

The first thought I had was, ‘I can’t right now, because I am trying to get this canning done.’

The second thought I had was, ‘maybe I can play for just a few minutes to say that I did and then get back to the canning.’

Luckily, I didn’t act upon any of those thoughts.

I looked at the army guys and looked at my son’s face.  I realized that army is not a fast game, and it isn’t meant to be.  It’s meant to be a game where you figure strategy, and di

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Too many reminders?

Leave a Comment / All, Toddlers (0-4), Using TSG Skills /

“With young children like my 3 yr old, I am very tempted to give at least one reminder, another chance, before they get a consequence.  So if he starts to whine and say no to an instruction, I remind him of each of the steps and encourage him to do them.  Is this teaching him that it is ok to whine first and not to start out with the appropriate response?  Or is it just pre-teaching?  Is there a limit to how many times pre-teaching should happen?  How can I tell if I am trying to govern him or just pre-teaching and giving him a chance to understand what choice he is making?”

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Earning Money…

3 Comments / All, Home Culture, TSG Principles /

“Do you have a way for your kids to earn money?  Could you elaborate on that?”

There was a time when we paid our children an allowance of sorts.  Each child had a calendar.  Their consequence for a minor offense was an X on the day of the calendar.  After 5 Xs in a day, they lost their privileges for the day.  Each day they automatically earned 50 cents because they were part of our family.  For each X they earned, 10 cents was subtracted from the day’s totals.  Every Friday dad would come home with cash and the children would total their charts and report to dad fo

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Fights? continued

Leave a Comment / All, Using TSG Skills /

“…so in the course of asking from youngest to oldest their account of what happened, do their accounts factor in the consequences they receive?  Because all of them are disrupting the family feeling and not communicating well with each other, so because of that they earn a consequence.  But what if one was more a victim and one was more of a perpetrator (based on what you can deduct from their stories)?  I guess I am wondering if there is a purpose to hearing their stories other than letting them feel heard and calm down, or if the content of their stories re

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Fights?

Leave a Comment / All, Using TSG Skills /

“When your kids are fighting, do you try to instruct them in the middle of that?  I often try to intervene but maybe too often – they don’t seem to be learning to problem solve with each-other rather than tattling and trying to get Mom to settle things in their favor.  I honestly don’t know what would happen if I let my kids continue to fight until it blows over or comes to blows, I usually step in and separate them before I can see how they would solve the problem.  I know they are generally out of instructional control when they are fighting, so anything I tell them at that poi

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