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Leave a Comment / All, Children (4-10), Home Culture, Toddlers (0-4), TSG Principles, Using TSG Skills, Youth (10-18) /

One of my passions is astronomy.  When I go out in my backyard and look through my telescope at my friends, the planets and stars, I feel so close to God.  Not because heaven is in space, but because it is so obvious there is organization in all things.  He is a God of order; with everything in it’s perfect place.  Everything has a purpose; a mission.  Since He is order in all we see it only makes sense that people should live by order too.  

Just like laws and principles govern the skies and the earth, there are laws meant to govern us as well.  That is why we have chosen to apply governing rules to our home too.  We feel like there is no better example of how to run a home than the way God runs our world; the current home for His family. 

Our family has a set structure.  We have certain meetings each week to strengthen the family relationships and keep the home in order.  The meetings we have are

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Advice From the World’s Strictest Parent

Leave a Comment / All, Home Culture, TSG Principles, Using TSG Skills /

“Hi Nicholeen, I hope you don’t mind me messaging you/adding you as a friend….I saw you recently on tv here in England, and as a mother of two I was so impressed and humbled by your patience and love. Nothing seemed to get you down. The love and respect your family have for each other was so apparent, and it did bring tears to my eyes. I would love to have that same patience, tolerance and sheer joy in my life that you do. I’d love to hear back from you, if you have the time, and if possible try and send me some of your calm and patience through the web!!”

 

     Thank you so much for your kind words. What age are your children? It is so good that you are trying to be the best mother you can be. There really is nothing more important for our world right now than parents raising good children who will fight for goodness in this confusing world. This is what I am doing at my house.

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Stand For Something

1 Comment / All, Children (4-10), Home Culture, TSG Principles, Using TSG Skills, Youth (10-18) /

     One afternoon my children and I went on a walk to our local library.  The library is about one and a half miles from our home.  After a great time reading and exploring together in the library, we started our mile and a half walk home. 

     During the walk one of my small children mentioned he was hungry.  It was getting close to dinner time, and would still be a little while before we reached home.  When we were about a half way home we passed a home which had a large apple tree growing on the property.  The apples on the tree were perfectly ripe and large.  My son immediately notice

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Fathers figuring things out

3 Comments / All, Home Culture, Relationships, Using TSG Skills /

Recently I have had multiple people email with questions about their husbands.  It seems that some fathers are reluctant to make changes in their family culture and systems even when the rest of the family is already using the teaching-self-government system.  Even though I am speaking from a woman’s perspective today to women primarily, I have also had fathers email about their wives not wanting to change, so the topic is valid for both mothers and fathers.

     Why is it that one parent can be ready for change and another isn’t?  The answer to this question is probably individual in many

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Success Stories and Some Questions

Leave a Comment / All, Children (4-10), Home Culture, Relationships, TSG Principles, Using TSG Skills /

Thank you so much for your teaching this subject! I purchased the CDs about two months ago when I heard about them through the LEMI mentors association, listened to them, took lots of notes, and put it into action at a family meeting about 3 weeks ago. It has been so helpful! It has already made a big difference in our home!

My eight year old son was having trouble obeying the first time i.e. following instruction, and we would ask him again and again to do things and he wouldn’t do them. He would forget or get distracted reading. (He’s a white, through and through.) Then we would get angry and he would do it. But he would sometimes get angry and lately even sometimes go into a little bit of a rage.

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Have You Ever Done This?

Leave a Comment / All, Children (4-10), Home Culture, Relationships, Using TSG Skills /

A parent says, “Billy, come make your bed.” 

Billy doesn’t come immediately so the parent says,”One…….Two………Three.” to get Billy to come. 

Have you ever done this?  Everyone knows Billy better start running either at or before his mom hits the number three or else Mom could turn into a monster. 

As I travel around, I notice counting to three as possibly the most common parenting control method.  Counting has it’s place in parenting, but the counting in the above story is either a threat, a power struggle, or a sign of a parent who doesn’t real

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Sunday chores again.

Leave a Comment / All, Home Culture /

What about extra chores?

On Sundays we don’t do heavy work, or major maintenances in order to keep our Sabbath.  But children still make bad choices on Sundays.  My policy is this:

If my child chooses to earn an extra chore on a Sunday then I try to think of something that I would normally have to do on that day anyway; such as make cookies for a family treat, or put all the books back on the shelf etc.  Remember, all chores don’t have to be miserable, they just have to teach cause and effect.  A person doesn’t have to feel pain to learn. 

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Peck Family Standard

2 Comments / All, Home Culture, Relationships, TSG Principles /

This last weekend at the seminar in Clearfield, UT I was asked for a copy of my family standard.  In case it is useful to anyone else, it is below.  Warning, this is three pages long on word.  You should be able to copy and paste it back to word if you want to use it too or take ideas from it.  🙂  It does contain some things that are specific to our family’s religion.  Regard those things how you will.  Each family’s family standard should include things from their religious foundations. 

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Voice Raising and Critical Attitude

Leave a Comment / All, Home Culture, Using TSG Skills /

I walked out of the room and was faced with disrespectful behavior…voice raising and critical attitude for no apparent reason….It made me glad I can look forward to the publishing of your book!  I am starting to chalk this type of behavior up to “Not following instructions” based on the instruction to “Treat others with respect and kindness.”

You could either call it “Not Following Instructions,” or you could call it “Not Disagreeing Appropriately.”  Either way would work for a corrective teaching.  However, I try to teach to “Not Disagreeing Appropriately” whenev

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Comment on chores…

1 Comment / All, Home Culture, Using TSG Skills /

Thank you–this was very helpful! One more question. . .On the specifics, like letting the children know chores are a “standing instruction”, the children having to make up the time if you do the chore for them, the time period allowed for chores to be done, or the 30 minutes for a dishonest chore, how did you determine these and then teach/tell your children about what would happen?

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Are Chores Instructions too?

3 Comments / All, Home Culture, Using TSG Skills /

I know you’ve written posts about chores before, but I can’t seem to find them on your website. So I’ll ask my questions, and maybe you can direct me to the proper posts if you’ve already answered them! Are the everyday chores that kids have a “standing instruction?” In other words, if they don’t do their chores or have to be reminded to do them, are they not following instructions, and would they start earning consequences?

Yes. Any responsibility your child has, such as a chore or school work, is an instruction. The term “standing instruction” is perfect fo

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Dealing with Friends part 4

Leave a Comment / All, Home Culture, Relationships, Using TSG Skills /

How do you help your children stand up for what’s right without being “preachy” or “goody-goody”?

The most importantskill you can teach your child is how to determine what is right and what is wrong and how to choose right and stay away from wrong. This is the whole reason children need parents. If my child can’t match his outfits, doesn’t know how to do mathematics well, never changes his bed sheets, ortalks with his mouth full, it doesn’t really matter at all if he has mastered how to discern between what is right and what is wrong and chooses to follow right.

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Dealing with Friends part 3

Leave a Comment / All, Home Culture, Relationships, Using TSG Skills /

How do you help your children respond appropriately to unkind behavior and deal with conflicts? 

I am assuming this question is referring to conflicts with friends and not siblings, although the conflicts aren’t too much different.  In fact, in most cases if we all treated each other like friends instead of siblings, we would all be much nicer to each other.  For some reason, most people treat strangers, and friends way better than fami

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Dealing with Friends part 2

Leave a Comment / All, Home Culture, Relationships, Using TSG Skills /

 “How do these things change as your children get older?”

Too much friend time makes children selfish.  Children who are around peers too often start to think more about their peers than their family.  This focus on self encourages them to with draw from family. 

If children have limited contact with peers when they are young, they will most likely not become dependent upon having friends around for their happiness.  The last thing I want is a child who thinks that their happiness comes from something or someone else.  Happiness comes from inside us all, and for

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Dealing with Friends

Leave a Comment / All, Home Culture, Relationships, Using TSG Skills /

How often do your children play with friends, and under what conditions?  How do these things change as your children get older?  How do you help your children respond appropriately to unkind behavior and deal with conflicts?  How do you help your children stand up for what’s right without being “preachy” or “goody-goody”?

These great questions about friends will take a few days to answer.  The answer to the first question is below. 

“How often do your children play wi

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Changing generations

Leave a Comment / All, Children (4-10), Home Culture, Relationships, Toddlers (0-4), TSG Principles, Youth (10-18) /

The Universe is governed by laws. One of those laws is that an older, wiser species comes before the new, innocent young of the same species to guide the younger toward right choices and acceptable behaviors. I have heard parents say before that their children didn’t come with instruction manuals. This is true, and each child is uniquely different, but I have wondered if parents make statements like these to make themselves feel better

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Family Meeting Question

Leave a Comment / All, Home Culture, TSG Principles /

“In a family meeting, do the kids actually get to vote on the final decision, or are they just giving input and opinions, and then the parents make the decision?”

Good question.  Everyone votes in the family meeting.  On rarest of occasions the parents could veto a vote if it is dangerous or goes against the family mission statement or family morals in any way. 

The reason that everyone must vote, is because this is meeting where everyone in the family finds their focus and works on communicating to each other.  This is also where all the positive and negative co

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