No matter what your amazing life is right now or will become later you will encounter children. Even though you may decide not to have children yourself, I’m certain you have met children and thought to yourself, how did that happen.
I met a woman who made me smile when she told me, “Patrick I do love children, I just can’t eat a whole one”
Many parents I meet have made the biggest mistake in their lives by placing more importance on the pursuit of money than on their children. Parents work long hours and children suffer. Never put money before children or your spouse, not if you want a loving relationship and an amazing life.
Some people ask how the art of lovemaking can make a child that has turned out to be such a monster. Well instead of you having to go out and purchase a book on parenting, I’ve included how to become an amazing parent here for you.
If you are currently struggling to work out how to love and guide your children, then this chapter will give you the answers. While you are absorbing this I may smash a few myths about parenting along the way. So just read the principles and then you will understand when children become completely lost we can rescue them.
Every day I attend my office I find myself face to face with a parent. 90% of the time it will be a mother. She will explain to me in great detail what she thinks (guesses) is wrong with her child. Then will ask me if I would like to talk to the child to see if I can fix “it”. She then walks outside and brings the child in to sit in my office while she goes outside and waits.
The expectation then of course is that the child who just walked in won’t be the same child when it walks out again. Somehow I am going to “fix” this child, because obviously it’s broken. Well at least that’s what the mothers told me, and I have about twenty minutes to accomplish this.
So the first thing I do is remember all my training over all these years and then that little Mexican man named Cesar Millan (the dog whisperer). You can’t imagine this famous television dog trainer training the dog and not the owner can you? Well in my office when it comes to training children, it involves the parents much more than the child. Just like my friend Cesar, he knows that the dog has been trained to behave in a certain way and he needs to retrain the dog owner. I need to retrain the parent as well as the child. That shouldn’t be a surprise at all. Not many parents have been on training programs on how to raise a child.
In these following examples I am talking about children from the age of 8 years upwards. With the young ones ranging from 8 to 15 I can still get away with the trusted story of bank building. This is where I tell the children that no matter what they want in life, whether it’s right now, at the weekend or next year, the only way the parents will say yes is if they have built enough good bankable currency to get a yes.
The Amazing Bank Technique
Here’s how easy and profound it is. Children as we would agree need both discipline and praise. By the way I use praise 90% of the time, it’s easier to look for and works 100% more for the child. Most parents I meet never understand praise and what it does for the child. They are too busy looking and expecting all the wrong things to happen. Yet again as I have been saying throughout this book, it is a trick of the mind, this time by the parent.
I first set up the child to understand that they need to do things around the house for free. This means jobs, any jobs they can handle. This teaches a child to contribute to the family and the household. Then once the chores are done I want the child to look for ways to build a bank of currency by way of more jobs but this time they will use the extra jobs they do as currency.
Here’s how it works:
I was asked to help a 14 year old girl who didn’t get this at all. She wanted no part of my plan at all, until I said, “I’m the only person on earth who can get your parents off your back”. This got her attention. From there I explained how she would need to work very hard to reinstate herself in the family so she could be trusted by both parents again.
She had a history of running out of school, not doing homework, bad grades and using bad language. All of which remember had been trained. I managed to find the missing part of this little girls puzzle by listening to her, something she told me her parents never did. She would tell me that every time she attempted to tell her parents how she felt, they simply shouted at her and told her to go to her room.
So now motivated and looking forward to the next two weeks of hard work and looking for opportunities to do even more tasks for her parents this young child left happy. I didn’t say a word to the mother.
Two weeks later the mother arrived back with her daughter and began to tell me how much the child had changed. The mother went on to tell me that her daughter had begun to work around the house, was being nice to her brother and sister and staying at school. When it was the daughters turn to come in she was angry and upset. She told me she had done all I had suggested but that her parents had not said well done or anything.
This is typical of many parents who don’t even know how to give praise, let alone see times when the child needs praise. I spent most time with the mother explaining my idea of her daughter building a bank of jobs and good behaviour in exchange for special treats like having a friend over to stay the night. The mother went away and began to praise her child even more. They were both very happy the last time they came in all because we retrained both of them to look at life differently.
Change What Doesn’t Work
Jack was an 8 year-old boy out of control (mothers description) who attended my practice for anger issues. The story was that the mother had lost control and Jack was winning and loving every minute of it. When I asked the mother if Jack misbehaved in front of his dad, the answer was no.
This is a very popular situation and often can cause big trouble in the marriage or partnership. The child’s view of his father is very different from the view he has of his mother.
Little Jack had his mother running scared, the mother forgot who was the adult. She spent most of her day running after him, literally. If she was trying to get him to school on time he would be too quick for her and run around the house with her chasing and yelling at him.
However if dad was home little Jack was an angel. Do you get what’s happening in this household? Yes Jack is in charge and mum is not.
My work had to begin with mum. I found out that mum did most of the parenting while dad was at work. However dad was fed up with mum because she couldn’t control the child, so the parents were in crisis.
The simple difference here was one parent represented fear to young Jack while the other parent didn’t. The dad would just have to look at the child and Jack did what he was told. Mum however had to scream, chase and often smack Jack to get him to behave.
Of course like all mums do she would attempt to sit Jack down and talk to him about why he should have behaved. This technique of talking to a young child using adult language like the word respect does not work. She did this all the time and all the time it didn’t work, she kept doing it.
Please remember this as long as you live your amazing life. When it comes to children and behaviour fear is a greater motivator of than pain.
The dad produced fear in Jack and the mother produced pain. In screaming, chasing and smacking Jack all mum produced was short-term pain that only slowed Jack down.
It also trained Jack to never look for any other attention other than pain. He became used to the smacks and the screams.
I always ask every parent this question. “Did you treat your parents with this much disrespect when you were that age”?
Don’t allow your child to be disrespectful
It still amazes me that while a mother is in the midst of telling me how disgustingly rude and disrespectful her child is she still doesn’t get it. I have interrupted literally thousands of parents and asked that question and the parent will almost always say, “No way”. When I ask the parent why they didn’t abuse their own parents they normally tell me they were TOO AFRAID. So of course I can’t help myself and I just have to ask the obvious question. So WHY do you continue to let the little child do it then?
