TSG Principles

Order at Home

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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Londyn, Age 7, Tells About the BBC World’s Strictest Parents

     My name is Londyn and I am seven.  Hannah and James changed a lot by the end of the week they stayed with us.  And when they went home they made good changes.  Like James took his lip piercing out and he wants to stop smoking. 

     It was sort of sad that Hannah was a mom so young.  I wouldn’t do that if I was her.  But she was always

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Advice From the World’s Strictest Parent

“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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Porter Peck Talks about James and Hannah

I transcribed this rememberance of our BBC “World’s Strictest Parents” experience straight from the mouth of my five year old son Porter…..The grammar is unedited on purpose.  This is how he speaks.  🙂

My name is Porter and I am five 5.  James and Hannah came to stay with us and they were nice to me.  I remember that they liked to swing on our swings.  When they left our house I cried a lot because I was sad that they were going.  They were having attitudes a lot of the time and they wanted to

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Comment on World’s Strictest Parents

A comment on a previous post said:

Saw the show last night. And I felt credit where it’s due … I had to cringe at the behaviour of the two kids (because that’s what they were). And speaking as someone who isn’t religious, or abstemious (but who doesn’t over indulge beyond a glass of wine with a meal), I can only say I was very impressed by your patience, and the outcome …

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Stand For Something

     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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Teaching Self Government requires Self Government

        Another way I change my children’s hearts is to see what changes I have to make in myself.  If a relationship is suffering, it is usually a two person problem.  So, if I feel disconnected from my child, I take a good hard look at what I can do to change myself, motivate myself, and inspire myself.  In short, I try to see how I can live better so that I can inspire my child to live better.  In the past this has even required a new way of communicating to my family.  So far, this approach to changing hearts has been a big blessing for myself and my family. 

        If I am going to in

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It Changed My Life

I recently received a very inspiring email which answers the question “How will Teaching Self Government change my family?”   I love to see what Teaching Self Government looks like in other homes, so I thought you would enjoy it too.

TSG has change my life.  It has opened my eyes to the 4 basic communication skills.  It has given me hope that despite my upbringing, I can learn the skills to help me be a better parent and communicator with my children.  It helps me to pause when I’m really frustrated, to know what to say in any situation instead of constantly having to be creative

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Success Stories and Some Questions

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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Religion Affects Self Government Learning Capacity

Lately, my teenage son doesn’t want to go to church with the family.  I don’t really want to make him go.  Even though he is not especially religious right now, he is still a good boy.  Should I be worried about this? 

     It is really common for children, and sometimes even adults, to go through a time when they don’t feel like being dedicated to religion.  It is hard work to live righteously, and follow religious principles.  All the really religious people I know have one thing in common.  They are all disciplined.  Since it is so common for youth to go through a

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criticism

Is Giving Criticism Bad?

You use the word “criticism” often when you’re talking about corrective teaching…That word however, has a very negative connotation to me, and each time I hear you say it on your CD’s, I cringe inwardly… I listen to and read a lot of stuff on marriage and parenting, and the word “criticism” is always used as a negative term. It’s considered one of the 6 Love Busters in Harley’s book, Love Busters. John Gottman, in his books on marriage, includes it in “a set of particularly poisonous patterns of interaction [he calls] “the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” that can

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What about lying?

I was asked how I handle lying.  This is a very common problem with children who are trying to gain control of their lives and other people. 

In the past I have written many posts on lying.  Two posts which may especially be helpful are “Communicating Honestly”  And “Honesty“.  If you type these words into the light blue bar at the top right of this page and you will find them.  In fact you will find any post that mentions honesty in it.  I hope thi

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Peck Family Standard

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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Question about “perfect families”

There was a comment left on the “perfect families” post which said,

Have you found ways to keep from joining in the competition when you speak about your kids, and shut down competitive questions/remarks from others?

There is definitely a way to keep from joining in these kinds of competitions.  But, the way is not easy because it goes against human nature to seek evidence of personal success by comparing.  I have realized the act of comparing or one-upping usually happens when I stop listening to and caring about the parent talking to me and caring about my own fami

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Changing generations

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

“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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Balance for a mission mom?

How do you balance your mission with your family mission?  Obviously helping

others learn to teach their children self-government takes a good deal

of your time away from your family so I’d love some tips.  God has

inspired me to reach out more to others and share my talents, but I

sometimes find it difficult to find a good balance with my #1 mission

of raising my family.

This question is a classic!  I love it.  What ambitious Mommy doesn’t struggle with this?

You are right, I have to pull off quite a balancing act to manage all of my missions. 

The famil

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