R=TLC is the path to self-actualization.

The goal here is to develop a child’s ability to respond appropriately given the needs of a situation, by teaching them how to be a good thinker, and a loving and confident person. The two most import ways parents teach their children is by setting their own example and by actively problem-solving with them. Children are far more interested in what we do than in what we say. Teaching children how to respond appropriately requires continuous attention from parents to make sure that their own behavior is consistent with what they expect from their children. It is obvious that if you don’t want your child to lie, then you shouldn’t lie. Children learn how to solve personal problems by experiencing how the parent solve problems. A parent’s guidance of a child needs to be subtle and constant.

Three types of agreements * Mandatory * Flexible * Personal

Even if you have made your best effort to explain why something is the case, there is still no guarantee that the child really heard you or understand what you said. It is always better to clarify whether or not you have reached an agreement. The idea is not to lecture a child but to actually gain the child’s participation in deciding what would be the right action. Assertive statements begin by stating “who” proceed to “what” and close with “when.” Example whoever makes a mess cleans it up. If help is needed a person can ask for it. Mom can advise you need to clean that up now. Many parents do not clarify the essential when to their children. If you say now the child understands that it means immediately. If you say as soon as you can your child may think you mean by dinnertime, before bedtime or whatever. This is avoided if the parent clarifies the agreement by stating a particular time.

Mandatory Agreements- means that you must be responsible for living up to the agreement because of the importance of the situation. Until children are old enough to understand safety issues, parents have to be vigilant in protecting them, and a the same time teach them the seriousness of the situation. Safety rules are mandatory. 

Flexible Agreements- While safety agreements have few exceptions, there are many situations where new agreements can be made that reflect the changing needs of a situation.

We want to encourage our children to develop their personalities by making decision from a wide range of acceptable choices. As they get older, they need increasingly more opportunities to exercise free choice over their lives. This is essential for building confidence and promoting healthy independence. After coming to an agreement, you need to verify your understanding of the agreement by using the Three W’s. The goal of Step 2 is to help children become clear about what the agreements are and to adopt the agreements as guides for the behaviour that each person has agreed to.

Another breakthrough for parents is to understand that when children know better, they do better. You can easily figure out what a child knows by observing their actions. Just because a child does something once or even twice, does not mean that they have attained mastery and truly knows its. Repetition is often required from them to really understand something and assume full responsibility for being consistent with it.

If your children see themselves as failures, they will attract failure;Submitted by

if they see themselves as successful, they will attract success.

Patricia Lessard

Certified Breakthrough Parenting Instructor

Discipline on the other hand does not inflict pain or interfere with self-esteem. Discipline promotes self-actualization. One way to determine if you are using discipline or punishment in a situation is to ask yourself how you feel during and after the encounter. Parents don’t feel guilty after disciplining a child. After punishment they are more inclined to be sad, worried, frustrated. Some parents may go to great lengths to justify a punishment in an attempt to overcome these negative feelings.

In Breakthrough Parenting discipline means to teach or train primarily by using one’s influence. It implies being a guide, instructing or enlightening another. Sometimes discipline means taking charge of a situation when a child can’t. A child may experience being disciplined or taught as uncomfortable. However, there is a big difference between feeling discomfort and feeling the physical and emotional pain of being punished.

There are a variety of ways to discipline children without causing them to experience pain. Parents who rely more on influencing, rewarding and communicating than on using force will have more successful relationships with their children, who in return will be more cooperative.

Discipline – means to teach
Discipline with love – means to teach responsible behaviour using tender, loving care.

The most important way parents teach is by example.

Discipline does not mean punishment.

In this method, discipline means to use influence rather than manipulative rewards or power to accomplish the goal of training children to be responsible. The goal is for children to develop an internal reference as to what is appropriate behaviour, one that they have arrived at because it makes sense to them, not because it is forced on them. If you just dictate family rules to your children, you invite rebellion, especially during times when there is no one to supervise. The question is not whether a family will have rules, but who sets them – only the parents or the parents and children together.

An advanced parenting technique is to use the principle of participation in deciding family rules. Children need to develop their thinking abilities by doing active problem-solving. A powerful disciplinary technique is to turn a problem over to a child to exercise their own mental muscles in getting problems solved. You may be surprised to see how resourceful your child can be in thinking of solutions.

It is easy to take a shortcut and simply decide for your child. It is also true that there are situations that call for you to make an instant decision. However, with a little extra time, you frequently can strengthen the child’s ability to respond appropriately by helping them think through the circumstances and come a good decision.

Three Steps of Disciplining With Love

Step One: R=TLC

TLC is the way to help parents remember to use methods of tender, loving care.
R=TLC is the path to self-actualization.

The goal here is to develop a child’s ability to respond appropriately given the needs of a situation, by teaching them how to be a good thinker, and a loving and confident person.

Step Two: Clarifying Agreement Who, What and When

Step Three: Follow Through. Catch them being good. They need to know that you appreciate them and notice their successes. “Good for you!” “That’s right!” “Terrific, you did it!”

Nothing succeeds like success.

Submitted by
Patricia Lessard
Certified Breakthrough Parenting Instructor

The Goal R=TLC Responsibility = Thinking Loving Confidence
The Method TLC Tender Loving Care

R= the ability to respond appropriately given the needs of a situation. Every day, parents encourage or discourage the development of qualities that will turn their children into responsible adults. Your children will be able to respond appropriately when they have developed these three essential character qualities; rational thinking, the capacity for loving, and sufficient confidence to act on their beliefs. These three qualities are included in our formula R=TLC. Built into this formula is also a way of understanding the best method for reaching the goal, which is tender loving care or TLC.

How can parents know when their children are grown up? What are we striving to achieve when we say that we are raising children? One good determination is that when children can accept full responsibility for the consequences of their choices, they are “grown up.” Responsibility means the ability to respond appropriately given the needs of the situation. Every day, parents encourage or discourage the development of qualities that will turn their children into responsible adults.

Your children will be able to respond appropriately when they have developed these three essential character qualities:

* Rational Thinking
* The capacity for loving
* and sufficient confidence to act on their beliefs.

Thinking

The “T” stands for thinking. This is the ability to use one’s mind to process information logically, to analyze situations and to form conclusions. A person with strong thinking skills can distinguish between fact and fiction and demonstrates common sense. Good thinking implies the ability to make wise or sound judgments. The more people strengthen their ability to reason and to sole problems, the better they function. Intelligence isn’t only acquired from our parents: it’s developed and given the chance to manifest mostly by what a person has learned and experienced. Attentive parents routinely teach children how to think by involving them in problem-solving activities.

Loving

The “L” in the formula stands for loving. Loving describes a way of being with oneself and others. It means fully accepting someone for who they are as a person, it doesn’t mean accepting that person’s behaior without conditions. Loving means treating others with respect and compassion, and valuing and promoting what’s in their best interest. The crucial first stage in helping children develop into loving people is to encourage them to love themselves. It’s only from a foundation of self-love that children mature to a place where they are capable of having compassion for others.

Confidence

The “C” stands for the courage to take action, stand up for oneself and to make independent decision. It means being self-reliant and trusting one’s own judgment. Just being a good thinker and a loving person does not make someone a responsible individual. By showing approval when your children act constructively, you can create an atmosphere in which your children can build confidence.

Six Steps to Problem-Solving

Children can develop strong thinking skills by participating in family problem-solving activities. All problem-solving involves the following six steps;

1. Identifying the problem; The first step toward resolving a problem is recognizing that it exists.
2. Understand the problem: Problems often have parts or specific details that need to be addressed.
3. Agree upon a solution: Everyone involved in the problem-solving process participates in brainstorming possible
Solutions and in choosing the best one.
4. Make a plan: A plan of action is then agreed upon, determining who is going to do what and when.
5. Follow the plan: Everyone does his or her part based on the agreements made for the plan of action.
6. Evaluate the results: This is the time to evaluate whether the problem was fully solved, and to determine whether
more work is required at any of the first 5 steps.

Solving problems together can be a rewarding and joyful experience, a chance to grow
and deepen family relationships and an important way to reduce family conflict.

Submitted by
Patricia Lessard
Certified Breakthrough Parenting Instructor

One way of understanding how the low self-esteem of a parent can be passed on to another generation is to look at just how misguided love can be. A lot of old thinking exists concerning the proper role of a parent. Almost always, parents try to justify the following punitive behaviour as an expression of love for their children. However, these methods of “loving children” invariably cause more harm than good.

The Boss

You can hear bosses barking commands. “Put that down.” “Stop that.” “Be quiet.” This is their favourite form of communication. Bosses impose unrealistic standards on their children because they do not understand the normal stages of child development. They do not understand how to protect a child’s self-esteem and how to build confidence. They want children to behave and think like miniature adults. When children behave like children, “the boss” is quick to criticize. This is misguided love because it contributes to producing dysfunctional and fearful children. Authoritarians in the workplace are not interested in debate and will not tolerate disagreement with their views. They must have obedience from their followers to stay in power.

Authoritarians parents are not as likely to understand the importance of building self-esteem. They spell out how awful the punishment will be for disobedience. When confronted about their behaviour, they insist their authoritarian methods are based on love for their children. Parents are telling the truth from their point-of-view, although it is a warped and misguided sense of love that is ignorant of the negative consequences for their children. Individuals who grew up under these extremes cringe at the abuses they experienced. They remember the beatings, going to bed without dinner, standing in the corner and being terrified of how much worse it could get.

Living Through Children

Another destructive practice of parents is attempting to live out their own life dreams through their children. Parents who do this see their children as an extension of themselves, not as separate individuals with separate life paths.

Spoiling

When parents take their children to special events, provide them with money when it is needed and in general treat them with abundance, generosity, time and attention it does not mean that they are “spoiling” them. Prosperity and abundance are part of living well. When children are treated with generosity they learn to be generous. This generosity must be tempered with parental decision as to the appropriateness of gifts and other privileges bestowed upon the children.

Generally, if children are taught to give at the same time they are learning to receive, they will have a balanced view of the “give and take” of human interaction. Teaching them that receiving abundance is spoiling them is very destructive. It gives the message that they do not deserve abundance, and this negatively affects their self-esteem.

Then what is spoiling? Spoiling is permissive parenting. This means that they are not exercising, socializing, reading, helping around the house, or doing a host of other activities that build character and intellect, strengthen their body, and encourage responsible social development. Spoiling is over-indulging children with material things. Some parents try to buy their children’s love with an excessive number of toys, a personal TV and expensive clothes. “Nothing’s too good for my child!” Parents may be inadvertently warping their children’s inner-development into thinking material possessions and status are the only way to have importance, when these have little to do with developing the inner strength of the child to promote his or her excellence. Excessively indulgent treatment eventually impairs a child’s character.

Being A “Buddy”

Often parents who see themselves as their child’s buddy are abandoning their parenting responsibilities by trying to be their child’s best friend. They are too permissive with the child because they are unwilling to be assertive and to provide guidance that the child needs. They are driven by wanting the child to like them. Children are often annoyed at their parents for not being able to do or give them whatever they want when they want. The “Buddy cannot tolerate the child’s annoyance and immediately tries to make the child happy again. This leads to inappropriate indulgences. Parents and children who love each other do have a valuable friendship. Being friends with your child is fine if you are clear about your parenting responsibilities and can stand firm in advocating what is in your child’s best interest.

Buddy parents do not take charge as leaders in the family, they do not provide sufficient guidance to help their children set appropriate limits for their behavior. They tend to not stick to their agreements and do not follow through.

Submitted by
Patricia Lessard
Certified Breakthrough Parenting Instructor

Understanding the Behaviour

Empathy or compassion demonstrates kindness, nurturing and acceptance. When parents have empathy for their children, they encourage the development of this trait in their children, and strengthen their bond with them at the same time. The empathetic parent makes every effort to understand the behavior of a child as an expression of his or her underlying thoughts, feelings and unmet needs.

Mom identifies what is causing the behaviour, she then addresses the problem by thinking of a way to meet the children’s needs directly. Many of the behaviours that children exhibit do not need to be encouraged with attention. The compassionate parent empathizes with the child’s point-of-view and maintains harmony by helping them get their needs met in a constructive, safe way. This style requires receptive listening and compassion on the part of the parent.

Shared Decision making

This leadership style relies on your child’s participation with you in decision making. For example, you begin by encouraging your child to express his or her point of view. Each child is encouraged to listen receptively to the other child’s point of view and to yours as well. You then allow the child to “experiment” with what they believe to be good ideas. This method of parenting allows children to experience having a voice and fosters confidence and independent problem solving. The parent who shares responsibility thinks, “My job is to guide children so they can learn to solve their own problems.” This is using influence.

Hands Off

This leadership style is non-directive. Children are encouraged to assume as much responsibility as they can safely handle. The goal is to allow them the freedom to experiment and to learn from their experience on their own terms. The parent is available to provide direction, if necessary. She keeps a sharp eye on them to make sure they don’t hurt each other. Eventually, they solve their own problem and find another activity. The hands off parent thinks, “If I don’t interfere, the children will work it out by themselves.” Children can often think of better solutions than we can. When parents pay attention to squabbles, they can perpetuate them. The hands off method can build good thinking skills because children, left to their own resources, must decide how to solve their own problems.

Be very careful not to resort to hands off parenting when a stronger leadership role is needed. \in many situations children simply are not mature enough to make wise choices on their own. Too much hands off style is overly permissive, leaving children in charge and without parental guidance which creates disharmony. Children require structure to feel safe.

Taking Charge

Often the simplest and best leadership style is to take charge, to be a director. Taking charge provides direction and structure. This is the style that most parents use. This should be used last. It can be overused and can easily turn into controlling a child rather than influencing a child to be self-referring. If you must, for safety’s sake, step in, \I suggest that you follow up your action with an explanation, perhaps at a later time when the child is more able to listen.

If mom had tried to teach while the children were angry with each other, the children wouldn’t really be able to hear her. When people are angry, they are feeling fear and are in a closed=off state. After a timeout, their perspective returns and a teachable moment can occur. The take charge parent thinks, I need to improve upon this situation by stepping in and actively problem-solving.

Choosing the Best Style for the Situation

Parents decide which style to use according to the needs of the situation. Parents may use all four styles in a disciplinary situation. First assess the needs of the situation and then decide which leadership style will work best for your children at the time. f you believe your children can figure out the solution to their own problems them step back. If there are multiple solutions ask the children for one or offer a suggestion (shared). When a child is likely to be hurt, move in and be a director (taking charge).

Do not just pick one leadership style learn to successfully use them all.

Submitted by

Patricia Lessard

Certified Breakthrough Parenting Instructor

How we Learn

This is the nature of teaching new skills to children. Parents teach their children countless lessons about life beginning at birth. From birth through adolescence, children are learning and mastering new skills at a rate far greater than at any other time in life. Everything is new and has to be learned. The way in which parents provide information and teach their children important life skills has a tremendous impact on how well their children will learn these skills. Consider how much a newborn baby has to learn before they can be a fully functioning adult. Children must be taught countless skills in order to become self-sufficient in life. Many of these skills we are unlikely ever to remember learning because they are so much a part of our lives today. Teens are learning important social skills for being in relationships with others. Young adults need the accumulation of many different skills to hold down a job, pay for a place to live, keep gas in the car, put food in the refrigerator and not run up excessive credit card charges. The best way for children to learn all of these important tasks is from compassionate teachers who are willing to patiently introduce these skills and help the children attain mastery over each one. After seeing a skill demonstrated Introduction) they will practice the skill many times before they can do it without assistance, (practicing the skill). The next stage of learning is to assume responsibility for doing a skill by oneself (assuming responsibility). In the final stage, they are able to perform the skill without help (mastery of the skill). There are countless skills like this that we must learn over our lifetimes to enhance our lives. An important part of being a parent is learning how to teach children these skills in ways that are empowering them to take responsibility.

INTRODUCE A NEW SKILL

PRACTICES THE SKILL

ASSUMES RESPONSIBILITY

SELF-MASTERY

How you teach these life lessons has a direct effect on how well the lesson is received and mastered. Teaching with tender loving care is the best method.

- No one has to tell the child when to tie shoelaces- Gets it right most of the time- several attempts to get it right- tying a shoelaceIF YOU HAVE A GIFT

It is important to package our gifts of knowledge and discipline in a way that influences others and invites learning rather than forcing others to act and think as we do. The styles are not all mutually exclusive and that in one disciplinary situation a parent may use all of them. Each leadership style is intended to influence children by giving reasons for advocating a certain point-of-view or to demonstrate ways of thinking or behaving.

The children being influenced are free to think or behave as they choose. Children usually change when shown a better way, but the reasons for change must make sense to then. Influence never implies forcing – the process allows the other person to exercise free will and helps them to assume responsibility.

External rewards come from someone other than ourselves. One way of externally rewarding a child is to show your approval. A simple acknowledgment of: “Terrific! You did an excellent job!” or “Thank you, you were a big help to me,” is confirmation that the child is doing the right thing.

This is an external validation of a child’s worth. The reward may include special treats or privileges for constructive behaviour. It feels good when others are pleased with us. In this case the reference point is outside of us.

Ultimately the goal is for the child to build an internal point of reference for approval, no longer only pleasing others, but rather developing a deep sense of personal satisfaction with his or her achievements. This technique builds self-esteem as it’s not based on vague general statements affirming the child’s personal worth, but on concrete behaviours that illustrate the underlying values the parents are advocating.

Too many external rewards rob the child of the opportunity to experience the pleasure of the unmatchable internal feeling brought about by a job well done. It is the parent’s task to help a child identify that feelings. EX for a young child “Wow that feels so good. You must feel big all over. The fundamental method of looking for and calling attention to what children do right has more significance and potential for success than any other method.

Too many people think they are doing their children a favour by pointing out the errors of their children’s ways. The problem is that negativity focuses on what not to do rather than on what to do. It does not provide sufficient models of acceptable behaviour.

Negativity is the absolute destroyer of successful family life.

Submitted by

Patricia Lessard

Certified Breakthrough Parenting Instructor

Statement sentences give children a context for understanding why they ought to cooperate, rather than resist. With statement sentences, parents bring their children into the discussion with equal responsibility for solving the problem.

There is an expectation that children can work through the situation to its logical conclusion. The parents are influencing, not controlling or forcing. The result is more cooperation. The child is learning good problem-solving techniques. This is an important life-skill.

I-statements are less threatening to either person in the conversation. They also show respect for the person with whom you are communication. They do not generate feelings of being talked down to. I-statements are often phrased as a plea for help by parents, and children love to feel that they are helpful. I-statements provide a valuable way for others to know the limits of what you will accept. I-statements are a way to tell the truth in a non-attacking way. Your child might have to think about what you are saying, especially if they are emotionally sensitive about it. You might need to agree to continue the discussion at another time.

Receptive listening involves doing three things at once:

1. Determining what the other person is feeling or thinking,

2. Assessing the situation, and

3. Discovering the reason why the person feels the way they do

regarding the circumstance or situation.

The formula for receptive listening is:

You are __________ about ____________ because __________.

Feeling situation reason

One of the biggest mistakes in communicating with others is forgetting that you are suppose to be listening and immediately start problem-solving. Problem solving is not receptive listening. This can be annoying to the person who needs to be listened to. Your job is to help the other person solve their own problems.

Questions like these may cut off communication:

a. What is the matter?

b. Why did you do that?

c. What happened?

d. Why didn’t you tell them what you were thinking?

e. Don’t you think you should have made a different choice?

Door openers keep the flow of ideas open. These are verbal and non-verbal cues that demonstrate that you’re listening. You might nod your head, use expressions such as “uh-huh, Wow or Yes or I hear you.

Use the receptive listening formula:

t seems to me that…..

…….your feelings were hurt when I insisted that you get ready to leave right away.

Submitted by

Patricia Lessard

A parent’s role is now more one of being a child’s steward, “to influence them toward internalizing that which is in their best interest”. “How many of you want someone else to control you?” “What makes you think that children want you to control them?”

The authoritarian approach to raising children maintains that parents “need’ to control their children. Control implies force, and can be a way of not respecting another’s boundaries. A person whose boundaries and will has not been respected is likely to feel defensive, frustrated and angry. This is likely to result in a power struggle.

The steward role is to keep children safe and growing in healthy ways. The goal is for the children to live fulfilling lives and to make positive contributions to society as adults.

While children do not want to be controlled against their will, they do want others to care about them and to look out for their best interest. Ideally children should respond to being influenced, but in reality this is not always the case.

Sometimes parents have to assume control because it would be irresponsible not to. Control should be used for a higher purpose, not in an end itself. One test of whether assuming control is a good idea is to think of what the child would do in the situation if he or she were mature enough to make a sound decision for themselves.

,

Influencing Children

Wouldn’t you like to teach your children self-discipline where they do what is good for them without threats of punishment? This can be a great stress-saver both for you and your children, but can only be accomplished by helping them develop their own internal control. Children need to become self-determined eventually.

It is better and longer-lasting to influence them to make good choices on their own based on solid information and healthy values. Influence leaves the power to choose, or decide what to do, with the person you are influencing. Providing the person is not going to hurt themselves or someone else.

The parent’s role as steward is to teach the child the logical and natural consequences of their choices so that they may choice wisely.

Unconditional Love and the True Self

Conditional love

Unconditional love

The fear of losing another’s love and approval can be so strong that we can lose track of our true selves. You do not want you child to lose track of who they really are. We want to create an environment for the family to support all family members’ continuous unfolding into their true selves.

One common way of correcting children was to shame them. The subsequent feelings of guilt would then bring children into submission. Trust is developed when your children are not afraid of losing your love. When children know they are loved unconditionally they don’t ever have to be afraid to tell you about their feelings and experiences. They can make mistakes and feel perfectly safe about sharing them with you because the continuing flow of your love for them is not in jeopardy. This creates an environment for you to be a powerful role model and reduce power struggles and stress.

Everybody fears change, but by understanding the true nature of change we can learn to anticipate and adapt to it more easily. All we can count on is change.

Submitted by

Patricia Lessard

Certified Breakthrough Parenting Instructor

is “I’ll always love you, even though I may be very unhappy about your behaviour, your behaviour is not who you are.”is “I’ll love you if you please me.”