Every so often, Shane and I dont even follow our own advice. I should hate to admit this fact, but really, what I love most about this post is that is shows the power we have over our own happiness and fulfillment! We all come to every situation in our life with a choice. We can see the GOOD in things and be joyful, or we can see the BAD in things and complain, fester and moan. Here is our families latest journey into the joy of just being together. After all previous posts about how to plan hiking trips with children to be SUCCESSFUL (here......THE JOURNEY and here.....THE DESTINATION) and create experiences that allow children to enjoy the outdoors and see the value in hiking and nature you would think we could heed this advice for a local hike. If NOTHING ELSE, then at least pick a location where we knew the girls can hike for a little while and then play if they get tired. But no...not on Sunday. This is what happens when we don't even follow our own advice (which, honestly, happens more often than I would like to admit, HA!!) CLICK BELOW TO READ MORE......
Nurtured Heart (NH) was designed with
the “difficult” child in mind. Where other parenting methods can
be successful to varying degrees with average intensity children, the
difficult child's behavior can actually ESCALATE as a result of
standard parenting methods (yelling, warnings, bribing, lecturing,
rationalizing, negotiating, etc...)
But the BEAUTY in NH, is that ALL
children can benefit and grow from this method of parenting because
it is all about finding and celebrating the GREATNESS in every child.
Today I am summarizing the first four chapters of the book, Nurtured
Heart.
Children get stuck in viscous cycles of
behavior. They get in trouble, they feel bad about themselves, they
get in trouble some more, they feel worse about themselves....and so
on, until it is nearly impossible for that child to have a good
thought about themselves.
When you feel bad, do you make good
choices? Most people would answer no to that question. When
children feel bad about themselves, they are going to make bad
choices. They just do not know any other way, unless it is taught to
them. We as parents, need to get OURSELVES some tools that can help
us and our children stop this downward spiral so that at the end of
you day you and your child can feel GOOD about yourselves, each
other, and the world you are creating in your family.
As you read this please keep in mind
these two ideas –
1. ROME WAS NOT BUILT IN A DAY! This
transformation of yourself and your child and your family is a TIME
commitment. Not only is this going to take time, but it is a
commitment on your part to CHANGE the way you behave so that your
CHILD can make better choices about how they behave.
2. You are going to be laying a STRONG
foundation so that your parenting has something to stand on the
duration of your life as a parent (ie – yes, you can choose to spank a 2
year old, but how long REALLY can you spank that child, and when you
have to rev it up as they get older, what are you going to do then?)
I know you are going to want to know what to do and how to do it
right away, but that is not how this is going to work. Parents want
to know about consequences right away and that is not how this
program works.
The BEAUTY of this parenting style is that children
want to behave because to the REWARD they get (positive, loving
attention). They do not behave because they are AFRAID of a
consequence.
In building a house, you cannot put the
second story up before the FOUNDATION and the FIRST FLOOR are built.
What we are doing here is laying the FOUNDATION. The second floor
will come, but now is not the time. Right now, we need to understand
how OUR behavior affects our children's behavior and what we can do
to change that.
I am so happy you are here with me to
learn about this. You can do this. You know, if you are in a
situation that has just been BAD and is getting WORSE.....you have
nothing to lose. Thank you for being willing to try a new parenting
method so that your children and your family can have happy, peaceful
and loving homes.
NURTURED
HEART
The simple idea behind NH is that a
child can use his negative INTESITY in new and positive ways when
parents consistently give no energy to the negative behaviors,
endlessly acknowledge the GREATNESS in the child, and consistently
follow through when a rule is broken so the child knows the
boundaries.
There are some very important concepts
that need to be understood before we embark on this journey to help
our children see and recognize their own greatness. A huge part of
what NH is all about, is understanding how we are parents contribute
to the problem!
CONCEPT 1 – TOYS R US
Not the store....but this is about US
AS THE TOY! Parents/teachers/adults we are all by far the most
interesting toy in the world. We have all sorts of reactions to all
sorts of things. Some days (if it is an especially difficult day) we
might show our kids some REALLY exciting reactions to some of their
behavior. We work by remote control....kids can get us to react even
from another room. Children know exactly what they are doing, they
have been taught by US how they are going to get the most attention
(energy) from us. Every try to talk on the phone with a toddler in
the house? They learn early on how to get our attention and our
reactions.
Most of the time, we react with FAR
MORE EXCITEMENT when things are going wrong. As a culture, we get
amped up for all the things that go WRONG. We can tell a child NO in
50 different ways, we can talk about why they are wrong, lecture
them, criticize them, harp on what they did wrong 40 minutes ago or
just hold a grudge. It is not difficult to get worked into a frenzy
when something has gone wrong. When things are going wrong, children
get LOTS of attention, eye contact, physical contact, and LOADS of
our energy.
When something goes right.....Good
Job!.....Thank you!.....or nothing at all. The kids are playing
nicely together – COOL – I can get the laundry put away. The
children getting very little of our attention, energy and eye contact
when they are behaving or simply doing what they are supposed to do.
This is a GREAT video that shows the energy that we as human beings have to give (it is 1 minute long):
That little toddler at the end is
watching his family thinking, How can I get some of that?
Think about fireworks. No one goes to
a firework show and then leaves before the finale. Everyone wants to
see the huge explosion. Children are the same way. They want that
huge reaction from their parents and if they cant get it for being
good, then they are going to get it by being bad.
As parents, we want to switch around
the way we react to things. We want to give NO ENERGY to our
children's negative behavior and give them CRAZY energy for what they
do right.
Concept 2 – Video Game Theory
Think about video games. Kids love
video games and there is an important reason why. You are rewarded
for following the rules. When you break a rule there is a simple
consequence. After the consequence, you are right back in the game.
Video games are CONSISTENT –
PREDICTABLE – UNFLAPPABLE. No manipulation or nagging or begging
or crying is going to change the outcome of a video game. There are
NO WARNINGS! They do not LECTURE you when you die. If you die, you
die.....then you start over again.
Same thing in sports. You are rewarded
for following the rules. When you break a rule there is a simple
consequence. (A TOE over the line is still a TOE over the line!) The referee states the broken rule, what the consequence is and then after the player finishes the consequence, they are right back in the game.
Now, think about your child's life.
Are they rewarded for following the
rules? Typically, the answer to this will be no. Sometimes maybe a
“Good Job!” is thrown in there. We talked about that above.
When they break a rule is there a
simple consequence? Again, typically the answer is no. A lot of the
time children will not even know what the rules are because one day a
certain behavior is fine, but the next day, when mom is in a really
bad mood the same behavior ends up having a consequence.
Or there is a lot of WARNINGS going on. “If you do that one more time......” “I'm not going to ask you again......” “If you dont get over here right this minute........” but USUALLY there is no follow through, and the kids know it.
Or, there is a time out that is so long
the kid doesn't even remember what they are in there for. Or more
importantly, they don't even care about being in time out because
they aren't missing anything in “time in”. “TIME IN” is
going to be an important concept (it is actually THE MOST IMPORTANT
PART OF THIS!). It can be explained pretty easily. Does your child
want to spend time with you? Are you fun and enjoyable to be around?
If not, then what motivation does your child have to behave?
This is a great video that shows how important FUN is. As parents, we need to be fun so our children want to be around us. (This is 2 minutes)
After the consequence, are they right
back in the game? My guess is going to be another NO. Parents hold
grudges, they have to talk about what the child did wrong and why it
was wrong. The parents have the need to clarify for the child why
they needed to be punished and how this behavior is affecting the
whole family. PARENTS can go on and on and on....KIDS – they are
ready to be back in the game!
We must create a new reality for our
children. We need to hand out GREATER responses when challenging
behavior is NOT happening, we need to acknowledge when successful
behavior is happening and we need to say absolutely NO to the
negative battles that our children want to pull us into SO OFTEN!
This is a challenging task that we are
taking on. We are so used to trying to teach rules when they are
being broken. When children are disrespectful we try to teach them
about respect, when they are lying we teach them about honesty, when
they are rude we teach them about being polite. It is EASIER to
parent this way. They do something wrong, we tell them to stop. We
were raised this way, this is how society works. It is not NATURAL
to tell our child – You are ready to go with your backpack on.
That shows a lot of respect for our family so that we can get out the
door on time.
Another challenge that some parents
will be up against is that children who are told over and over and
over (all day long) about how naughty they are, just cannot take
compliments well. You tell them, “That was helpful” and they
will recoil because inside they KNOW they are always naughty. For
children on the defensive, you will have to come in under the radar
so help that child SEE HIS/HER OWN GREATNESS. These children
desperately need to be taught how great they are.
To do this, we must commit, 100%, to
changing our own behavior. WE AS PARENTS HAVE TO TAKE A STAND – 3
stands actually –
STAND 1 – I ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT GIVE
MY CHILD MY ENERGY FOR NEGATIVE BEHAVIOR
STAND 2 – I WILL INSTEAD, PUT ALL MY
ENERGIES INTO ACKNOWLEDGING THE GREATNESS THAT IS WITHIN MY CHILD
STAND 3 – CONSEQUENCES WILL BE
DELIVERED WITH CONSISTENCY AND UN-ENERGETICALLY. I WILL NEVER IGNORE
A BROKEN RULE.
I am sorry to leave you with all this
information on what NOT to do, without getting into what you WILL be
doing to change things. However, it is so important to really pay
attention to our own behavior and see how we can be contributing to
the problems that we assume are ALL THE KIDS FAULT!
Until I summarize Stand 1 – I simply
want you to pay attention to when you give your energy to your child.
Don't even try to change your behavior, just pay attention.
If that is too hard for you, and you
are ready to change – then this is what I recommend. When
frustration sets in, take a deep breath and walk away, you can even
lock yourself in a “Time Out!”
Tell yourself (and your child if you
want) “Nothing I say right now is going to help this situation so
I am just going to be silent.”
It is true. There is NOTHING you can
say to a child (or an adult for that matter) in moments of intense
frustration that will make it better. It is ALWAYS better to just
walk away.
I will try to get Stand 1 reviewed in a
reasonable amount of time so you aren't left hanging for too long. Updated June 2 - I am coming to terms with the fact that I cannot do everything that I would like to do. Instead of me trying to reinvent the wheel here.....I would rather give you some good resources and then let you continue to learn about Nurtured Heart on your own if you would like. Here is a short video to introduce you to the NHA: 9 minute video And this the extended version: 26 minute video
And finally, below is a link to the NHA website where you can sign up to get an email once a week for 10 weeks. Every week has a different principle for you to work/focus/learn. A great resource. Way better than waiting for me to find time to review the rest of the book. NHA in your inbox once a week...
I do not normally just quit in the middle of something I am passionate about, but with summer approaching I thought it might be a good time to pass on this information from a more reliable resource. As much as I would LOVE to talk about how life changing this method has been for us, I have to recognize that I only have so many hours in the day and sitting in front of my blog is not how I want to spend my time!! Best of luck in your parenting journeys.
I hope that you are interested in this post because you want to learn more about creating a relationship with your children that is loving, respectful and uplifting. If you are willing to give these methods of parenting 100% effort for at least ONE MONTH, I feel strongly that your children will hold their heads higher, you will feel like the best parent in the world and your home environment will be more peaceful and loving than you could have imagined was possible. You will be working towards creating a relationship with your children that is loving, respectful and uplifting. This approach to parenting makes it so that EVERYONE knows they are the BEST person that they can be. Nurtured Heart (NH) is a parenting approach designed with the DIFFICULT, INTENSE, CHALLENGING, ETC.....child in mind. However, what I love about it is that it is beneficial for ALL CHILDREN and for the parents (families, teachers) who give their all to the ideas behind Nurtured Heart. What I also love, is that it does not replace all the other parenting "ideas" I have been studying for the last 10 years, it just adds to the beauty of it all. I would also like to mention that in the last 8 weeks of using NH with my own two daughters, I have seen a major shift in how much they ACKNOWLEDGE THEIR GREATNESS. They know they are awesome and they talk about how great they are. They compliment themselves and each other and other people. Their manners have improved, their patience has improved, and amazingly, Jill stopped hitting Alli on the first day I started this method.....How can so many wonderful things have changed so quickly? Because the focus in NH is.....
.....about learning to enjoy, relish and celebrate all the moments that your child is CHOOSING to behave....and giving absolutely ZERO energy (attention, yelling, lecturing, warning, negotiating, etc....) to the moments when your child CHOOSES to misbehave.
Why do some children choose to misbehave? Because that is how they get the most attention. If they are to choose between being obedient (but being ignored) or misbehaving (and getting lots of attention)....they are going to choose to misbehave. We all know that negative attention is better than no attention at all - to be ignored is to wither away and die! (See our APPLE EXPERIMENT about being ignored...)
Here are two articles I found that relate to how being ignored can alter a child's brain development. The first one is here: EARLY NEGLECT ALTERS BRAINS
I cannot help but include two quotes from this second article. This quote talks about how being ignored affected attention and comprehension problems (hmm....how many children today spend more time staring at a screen than interacting with other people?)
The harrowing consequences of these theories were most vividly brought to light in Romania in the 1980s and ’90s, when a ban on abortion led to a surge in orphanage babies. The longer these children were left in their cribs, simply being fed and changed without individualized affection, the more damage was seen, even if the orphanage was clean and well-run. Many children developed autistic-like behaviors, repetitively rocking or banging their heads. Some were cold and withdrawn or indiscriminately affectionate; some alternated between these extremes. And they simply didn’t grow like normal infants: their head circumferences were abnormally small and they had problems with attention and comprehension.
And this quote relates to how the lack of emotional love from parents can create hormone imbalances.... It may seem obvious that an isolated, parentless toddler — with or without social contact with peers — will suffer emotionally from lack of parental love. What’s not obvious is that without devoted, repeated acts of love, a child’s brain doesn’t make the growth hormone needed for proper mental and physical development and numerous other imbalances are also created. So typically, children are choosing between three things from parents, teachers, other adults in their lives:
Mellow positive energy
LOUD, EMOTIONAL, and maybe even some PHYSICAL negative energy
And being ignored.
Easy going children will be fine with the mellow positive energy. More challenging children are going to need the LOUD negative energy. They are intense and crave intensity, so whether it is positive or negative, they need that intensity. They get addicted to it, especially if it is the only way to get some EMOTIONS out of their parent/teachers. I want you to stop and think about yourself and how you interact with your children. How do your children get energy from you?Would you say that your children get the MOST energy out of you for POSITIVE behavior or NEGATIVE behavior?
I recently started to feel like my interactions with Jill could use some improvement. She is not "difficult" but her behavior is way more challenging than Alli. I also KNOW that Jill is a kid who needs attention, she CRAVES attention - and to get it she often is loud, goofy or over the top with her behavior. At 6 she is very harmless...but this behavior as a 15 year old worries me. She also was comparing herself to Alli a lot! She would say, "Why can't I draw as good as Alli?", "Why cant I ride my own bike downtown like Alli?", "Why cant I sit in a booster like Alli?", "Why cant I cross the street alone like Alli?" I wanted to help her - and us - see NOW that there were other ways for her to get much needed attention and also there were many ways that she was a successful and wonderful child (without needing to compare herself to Alli!) During the last two months, I have been making a significant effort (using the ideas in Nurtured Heart) to tell Jill all the wonderful things that she does and is capable of doing throughout each and every day, and it is making a difference. She is more confident and sure of herself. She gives herself compliments about things she has done and I haven't heard much in the way of, ".....like Alli...." since I have started this new way of parenting.
Why should we care about changing how we parent? Most of us do a fine job parenting. Most of us could change nothing about how we parent and our kids will turn out fine. A lot of us were not raised with good parenting and we think - WE TURNED OUT FINE.....If you feel that way, then there is nothing I can say that will change your mentality. But if you are open to becoming the BEST parent you can be, read on..... There is one important caveat with this method: If you are not willing to change the way YOU react to your children's behavior, there is no way this method will work for you. The MAIN GOAL of NH is that it is the PARENT who does the DIFFICULT work of changing their OWN behavior. The child will continue to make whatever choices (good or bad) they have always made....it is the PARENT who changes their REACTION to this behavior. We cannot expect our children to control their own emotions if we are incapable of controlling our own emotions. I want to mention 2 ideas that I feel are INSTRUMENTAL in raising children to be the BEST they can be. FIRST - Are you the BEST that you can be? There are lots of ways to evaluate this concept. It matters if we say, "I'm listening to you" as they talk to us while our eyes (and attention) remain glued to the phone/computer/TV screen. It matters if we say, "We do NOT hit our sister!" as we are give them a swat. It matters if we say, "DONT YELL AT ME!!!" as we yell at them. It matters if we whine and negotiate and bribe them to do what we want, as they whine and negotiate and bribe us to GET us to do what they want..... It matters if we say, "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all!" after they just heard us complaining to our spouse about a friend. They are learning from our actions and words every single day whether we want them to or not...... Are they learning LOVE AFFECTION, KINDNESS, HEALTHY COMMUNICATION, RESPECT, GENEROSITY, EMPATHY, SELF CONTROL, on and on and on.....? What is your reaction when you break something, or forget something, or you are running late, or something goes wrong? Your child is watching your reaction to all of these events. What if you had a bad day at work, or a friend made you upset, or the checker wouldn't let you return something, or your spouse forgot to do something for you? What kinds of conversations does your child overhear in these situations? Think about the last time you were driving with your children and someone cut you off (or wouldn't let you in, or didn't go the INSTANT the light turned green...). What was your reaction? Honestly, it is a good idea to stop reading this post and think about exactly what your reaction would be so that you know the kind of modeling you do for your child in a frustrating situation. There are lots of possibilities: You could say some choice words, you could flip them off, you could honk, you could swerve around them....... or You could just take a deep breath and carry on.....maybe say "Wow, that person must have somewhere important to go!" My point is that we are modeling for our children (with OUR BEHAVIOR) how they should react when they are frustrated, angry, upset. Children absolutely have no other way to learn about the world around them and how to behave in certain situations besides watching the adults around them navigate their daily life. It is worth thinking about how you handle anger, frustration, impatience, annoyance. SECOND - Know that your child CANNOT and WILL NOT become their BEST self, if they are reminded 20 (or 200) times a day of how (insert choice word here - naughty, bad, careless, destructive, disruptive, troublesome, slow, lazy, etc...) they are. It is a fact that children grow up to talk to themselves using the words they are told over and over. As parents, we should make sure the words we say to them are words we want them saying to themselves for the rest of their lives? I suggest you spent a few days really paying attention to how you talk to your child. How often do you tell your child how GREAT they are? How often do you tell your child (verbally or NON-verbally) how DIFFICULT they are? It is important to shift our focus onto the GREATNESS that is within each of our children. Honestly, even at its peak, when Jill was hitting Alli and/or throwing tantrums....that took up maybe about 20 minutes of our day. There were still 760 minutes a day when she WAS CHOOSING TO BEHAVE. I simply shifted MY OWN PERSPECTIVE to celebrate those 760 minutes that went well, instead of dwelling on the 20 that sucked the life out of me! With NH you will learn to put all your energies into the ABUNDANT GREATNESS that exists within your child. Click here to read a summary of the first 4 chapters Nurtured Heart Chapters 1 - 4
Updated June 2 - I am coming to terms with the fact that I cannot do everything that I would like to do. Instead of me trying to reinvent the wheel here.....I would rather give you some good resources and then let you continue to learn about Nurtured Heart on your own if you would like. Here is a short video to introduce you to the NHA: 9 minute video And this the extended version: 26 minute video
And finally, below is a link to the NHA website where you can sign up to get an email once a week for 10 weeks. Every week has a different principle for you to work/focus/learn. A great resource. Way better than waiting for me to find time to review the rest of the book. NHA in your inbox once a week...
I do not normally just quit in the middle of something I am passionate about, but with summer approaching I thought it might be a good time to pass on this information from a more reliable resource. As much as I would LOVE to talk about how life changing this method has been for us, I have to recognize that I only have so many hours in the day and sitting in front of my blog is not how I want to spend my time!! Best of luck in your parenting journeys.
We started this experiment in response to a NURTURED HEART parenting workshop that I am attending. At the last lecture, the man leading the workshop showed us this video...
And then said that he did not QUITE believe that this was true so him and his daughter did a similar experiment (but with apples and bread) for the Chico Science Fair. If you did not watch the video, here is the idea in a nutshell. CLICK BELOW TO READ MORE
Alli and Jill at the top of Golden Throne in Capital Reef National Park, Utah
Now that you know that hiking with
children is all about the JOURNEY and not the DESTINATION....let's go
one step further and talk about some ways to make that journey FUN,
FUN, FUN and also talk about how to ensure that you can eventually
HIKE to a DESTINATION with your children. It may seem impossible
when you have small children to even think about hiking distance or
elevation, but I would argue that anything is possible (eventually)
when you go at the pace of your youngest/slowest....take as many
breaks as necessary.....and make it FUN!!!
CLICK BELOW TO READ MORE
