attitude problems

The Potential Nutrition Cure for “Difficult Children”

8 Comments / All, Home Culture, Relationships / Nicholeen Peck

When I started learning self-government principles years ago, I was foster parenting some difficult children, most of whom were on medication and had severe anger issues and terrible eating habits.As I started teaching them self-government skills, many of the children no longer needed their medication. Sometimes the anger issues stopped immediately, but in other children the issues re-surfaced later. With these youth I looked at another aspect of self-government: their diet.

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Freedom For Families: The Tree Bark Approach

3 Comments / All, Relationships, TSG Principles, Using TSG Skills / Nicholeen Peck

“Give Me [Tree Bark], Or Give Me Death”: Liberty Yesterday And Today

No speech has ever stirred the American people so much as Patrick Henry’s “Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death” speech. No matter if I see a professional orator perform it with eloquence, or a young child reciting that speech, it touches my heart with goodness and purpose.

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How Parents Sabotage Their Children Socially

Leave a Comment / All, Relationships, Youth (10-18) / Nicholeen Peck

Generally, most parents want their children to have good social skills. They want them to be well liked and to be kind, respectful communicators. Unfortunately, some of these very well-meaning parents might actually be destroying the child’s ability to become this kind, respectful and socially mature person, and they don’t even know they are doing it.

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How To Prepare For Difﬁcult Parenting Situations

Leave a Comment / All, Relationships, Using TSG Skills / Nicholeen Peck

Life is hard these days. There are many stresses and concerns around us. Help your family be a haven away from the confusion and frustration of the world by deliberately improving your communication.

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Becoming A Youth: The Answer To Teenager Problems

1 Comment / All, Relationships, School, TSG Principles, Using TSG Skills, Youth (10-18) / Nicholeen Peck

“I am not a teenager and here’s why…” said a group of youth one day during a discussion on the article by Dr. Michael Platt, The Myth Of The Teenager. One after one each of the group of fifteen or so youth declared why they were not or would not be teenagers.

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Help My Out Of Control Kid!: How To Handle Temper Tantrums

6 Comments / All, Children (4-10), Toddlers (0-4), Using TSG Skills / Nicholeen Peck

Dealing with tantrums is the part of parenting which most parents dread. They hope their sweet little baby will not ever hit the toddler tantrum phase or the even worse teenage temper tantrum phase.

As a young mother, I was just as afraid of toddler tantrums as the next person.

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Accepting No After Disagreeing Appropriately

1 Comment / All, Toddlers (0-4), Using TSG Skills / Nicholeen Peck

“I’ve been using the 4 basic skills with my children, ages 7 and 4. It has been such a help. Thank you, Nicholeen!

But I’m not sure what to do to help my 4 yo understand the concept of
disagree appropriately. It seems too complex for her. She will go
through the script and ask to dis. app. and do it, but she seems
genuinely confused that she doesn’t always get her way when she does
this. I try to let her get her way as much as possible when she

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How To Stop Nagging? ~Help For Parents

2 Comments / All, Relationships, TSG Principles, Using TSG Skills / Nicholeen Peck

Each week I hold a special telephone mentor call for people who are enrolled in my Teaching Self-Government 10 Step Implementation Course. During these calls I personally answer people’s parenting questions. On this week’s call a very profound question was asked.

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World Wide Parenting Principles

Leave a Comment / All, Announcements / Nicholeen Peck

In the spring of this year I was approached by an American woman who does service work in China, and asked if I would go to Beijing, China to help strengthen families there. This woman had been speaking to some government officials and asking how she could help China, and they said that they were

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Teenage Attitude Problems

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

This last week my twelve year old daughter had an attitude problem a number of times in one day. This is very unusual for her and definitely had me analyzing her and the day. She earned negative consequences many times and we had talks about the situations and practiced how she could have handled them better. I really focused on seeking to understand. At one point, after she was calmed down I initiated a conversation to discuss her possible need for more sleep. During this conversation she said, “I just feel like no one really understands. I bet you hav

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The Dreaded Attitude Problem

8 Comments / All, Using TSG Skills, Youth (10-18) / Nicholeen Peck

As I go around the country teaching parenting seminars and trying to help parents make healthy changes in their family relationships, I notice there are two things which get asked the most.

1. What do you do for attitude problems?

2. How do you stop tantrums?

I an not going to expound on tantrums today, but I will say that attitude problems are just tantrums at a different level. The difference between the two are that tantrums usually happen when a person is small and they often include uncontrolled body movements and crying, and attitude problems are usually mostly verbal with abrasive body language. Attitude problems are usually more controlled than tantrums. Both tantrums and attitude problems are signs of frustration, anxiety and lack of healthy communication skills.

I am pretty confident talking about attitude problems, because I was the attitude problem queen of my house when I was in my teen years. I think my poor parents earned all their gray hairs during my attitude problem years. Luckily, I had a very insightful young women’s leader who saw my problem and wasn’t afraid to tell me how to change.

Great Advice

One day I was at her home telling her daughter that my parents wouldn’t let me go to a youth party because they

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Back Talking vs. Appropriate Disagreements & The Rule of Three

7 Comments / All, Children (4-10), Using TSG Skills / Nicholeen Peck

Hey, I have read your book and have been trying to implement the system, however I have a few questions. My oldest son is 11, he has trouble controlling his emotions and talking back. Here is an example of a typical situation; I ask him to do something he makes a face and might say a smart remark but he will look me in the eye after I remind him and will say ok sarcastically then he will go do the chore.

He follows the steps the right way about 50% of the time. Today he was out of instructional control and me telling him that if he chose not to follow my instructions that the was going to chose to earn another chore didn’t work. He just sat there, so I left the room for a few minutes and when I came back he was ready to follow instructions. However he was only ready after I told him that he was going to lose all his privileges. My question is how long should he lose his privileges? He was calm, he just didn’t want to follow my instructions when I asked the first time.

He also talks back too much or tries to argue.

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