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Amy Moore, PhD

Firm Parenting Re-Imagined | Nicholeen Peck

About this Episode

Firm parenting isn’t the same as ‘mean’ parenting. And your child isn’t “pushing your buttons” because they’re broken. Sometimes the real problem is that we’ve never been taught a clear, repeatable way to stay calm, set firm boundaries, and teach kids how to regulate themselves. Parenting behaviorist and family advocate Nicholeen Peck joins Dr. Amy and Sandy to redefine strict parenting as self-government: living by principles, staying emotionally steady, and using skills that make conflict predictable instead of explosive.

On this episode of The Brainy Moms Podcast. we dig into how Nicholeen’s years of working with traumatized and neurodiverse teens shaped a home culture that felt safe enough for even the most reactive kids to calm down. She explains why firmness does not require meanness, how scripts reduce power struggles, and what it looks like to teach children to follow instructions or disagree appropriately without manipulation. We also talk about brain-based parenting, getting everyone back to the “front brain” before solving problems, and why this approach is not about stuffing emotions but about timing and clarity.

Then we move into the practical foundations: building a family vision, defining family roles, and rebuilding belonging and bonding when outside influences pull kids away from home. If you’re homeschooling, parenting a strong-willed child, or navigating teen resistance, you’ll hear concrete ways to shift your mindset, hold boundaries with love, and invite responsibility without constant lectures.

Subscribe for more smart, compassionate parenting conversations, share this with a friend who needs calmer days, and leave a review so more families can find us. What’s the one moment at home where you want more self-control and less conflict?

About Nicholeen Peck

Nicholeen is a mother, grandmother, previous therapeutic treatment care parent, BBC television star, YouTuber, Podcaster, columnist, author of 15 books, international public speaker, president of The Worldwide Organization for Women, founder of the Teaching Self-Government parenting and communication system, homeschooler, and a member of the House of Representatives in her home state. But mostly, Nicholeen is a woman on a mission to help free people from emotional bondage by teaching principles and skills for unity, understanding, problem-solving, and above all, self-government. Find her at teachingselfgovernment.com and on social media at the handles below:

FB: Teaching Self Government https://www.facebook.com/teachingselfgovernment
FB: Nicholeen Peckhttps://www.facebook.com/nicholeen.peck
IG: Nicholeenp https://www.instagram.com/nicholeenp/
IG: teachingselfgovernment https://www.instagram.com/teachingselfgovernment/
X: Nicholeen Peck@nicholeenp https://x.com/nicholeenp

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NOTE: This transcript was auto-generated by an AI assistant that thinks it’s smarter than we are. It’s not, but it has more free time than we do, so we gave it a low-stakes job. It probably spelled a few things wrong, but we’re okay with that. We’d rather spend our time interviewing cool guests!

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Dr. Amy Moore 0:00

Hi, Smart Moms and Dads. Welcome to this episode of the Brainy Moms Podcast, brought to you today by LearningRx Brain Training Centers and the Homeschool OT. Before I introduce my guest today, I want to remind you that we have a free monthly newsletter. It’s full of tips on parenting and topics related to parenting and homeschooling and all of the cool things that we talk about on the show. So just go to theBrainymoms.com and you can sign up for it there. And now, my guest today is parenting behaviorist and family advocate Nicholeen Peck. Let me tell you a little bit about her in case you don’t know who she is yet. Nicoline is a mother, grandmother, previous therapeutic treatment care parent, BBC television star, YouTuber, podcaster, columnist, author of 15 books, international public speaker, president of the Worldwide Organization for Women, founder of the Teaching Self-Government Parenting and Communication System, homeschooler, and a member of the House of Representatives in her home state. But mostly, Nicholeen is a woman on a mission to help free people from emotional bondage by teaching them principles and skills for unity, understanding, problem solving, and above all else, self-government. Welcome, Nicholeen. Give us a little bit of an overview about how you became a parent advocate, how you came to create an entire parenting approach. What started that? What was the inspiration for the work that you’re doing?

Nicholeen Peck 1:36

Yeah, that’s a really good question because I never planned on any of that. That wasn’t in my sights at all. I was just trying to be the best mom that I could be. And I always tell everybody I was just minding my own business, trying to make sure that my children were taken care of and that they had the best environment possible. And then my husband changed careers, changed jobs, and went back to school. And I had worked really hard to pull away from my career. I was a counselor at a funeral home, and I had to pull away from that. And it took a long time. They kept calling me in for things. And finally I said, that’s it. And then shortly after I said, that’s it, my husband was gonna make a big career shift. And I thought, oh my goodness, what am I gonna do? And and I’m actually a pretty prayerful person. And and the thought came to me, you know, you could do treatment care. And so I took in troubled children. It was gonna be for a really short time. I thought, well, while my husband, you know, goes to school and stuff, I’ll kind of like help with that while he’s going back. And um, little did I know that that would change the whole trajectory of my life. So we took in troubled teens. They were all between the ages of 12 and 18. They were uh children or youth that had trauma in their past. Um, many of them sexually abused, some of them had been perpetrators themselves. Um, they were neurodiverse, most of them, not everyone, but most of them, oftentimes in many ways. They had a lot of really reactive behaviors, some trained behaviors like kleptomania, compulsive lying, um, anger control issues, a lot of self-regulation issues. Um they were socially reactive, many, many of them. There were just a lot of things that were happening. And they were the youth that no one wanted. Probably one of the biggest reasons that no one wanted these youth to come to their home was because almost all of them were liars. And when you see on a file liar, you think, how am I going to help them? But I actually, when I was young, was a liar. And I deliberately overcame that when I was about 14 years old, thanks to a friend of mine. In fact, um, she said to me just very point blank one day, you know, Nicoline, we all know you’re a liar and we don’t believe anything you say. And you should choose to tell the truth. And and all my friends had just walked away from me because I had just told a lie. And I thought nobody knew. And that was just like a soul-searching moment for me. She left me, they all left me standing there. I went home and I spent hours going, what am I gonna do? How am I gonna stop lying? It’s so compulsive. Like every time I open my mouth, I lie, and I don’t even know when I’m gonna lie. And it was just, it was this moment where and I I had known for years I needed to get a handle on it. I mean, I was raised by good parents, but I I was uh, it was a habit, is what it was. And I had to train myself and change myself to develop a new habit, and I’ll be forever grateful for that friend for correcting me in that way that day. So I had overcome that lying within myself. It took me years to do it, but I had done that for myself and I felt completely liberated. In fact, I have kind of a bent for the truth. I’m like, I’m gonna die on those walls of the truth now, you know. Anyway, anyway, and so um, so I knew that if I took in those, those youth that were had honesty issues, that I actually knew what was going on inside their head and I could help them. And we were really successful. We taught them the skills and principles of self-government. We ran a really tight ship, um, not an angry ship, but just a tight ship. And I think a lot of people think that firmness means you have to be mean, but we were totally welcome, totally welcoming, totally loving, but we were firm and we were going to teach them the skills that they needed because I did not want them to leave my home not having the recipe that they needed to launch into adulthood, because some of them were going to launch straight from my home into adulthood. That’s kind of scary when you don’t have family support and stuff, and they were gonna need all the steps. So anyway, I did that. People watched what was happening. They started asking me to talk to their church group and their parent group and their homeschool group and their, you know, all these different things and um their PTA group, you know, you name it, it just kept happening. And I thought this will probably be pretty short-lived. And then in 2009, the BBC asked us to be on a documentary called The World’s Strictest Parents. And when that happened, the world saw what our home was like, and everyone was clamoring to have the tools. They were like, How do we do that? You know, how do we not have buttons to push? They would ask. Because in the episode, my my son says when they’re interviewing him, Well, they’re just trying to push my mom’s buttons, but what they don’t understand is she doesn’t have buttons. Because I’ve tried to push them, you know, and everybody was like, How do I not get buttons? You know, and all this kind of stuff. And so, anyway, that’s what happened. And then everyone was like, Where’s your book? Well, now I’ve written 15 books. I have written seven books for children and eight books for adults, and that doesn’t count some of the other books that people have had me collaborate with them on. And so it life just changed. It just went down this road because you know what? People are suffering. So, I mean, there’s that’s kind of a long story, but it’s that one thing, that one thing of me trying to just be the best mom I could for my children ended up me helping other people’s children and then leading to me sharing the skills and principles of self-government with a lot of people because it wasn’t just people with troubled children who were suffering, but just every regular parent was going, Do I have to have these arguments all the time? Does is it normal for my child to hate me? And and I didn’t ever see that happening. And does that mean I’m a failure? Does that mean something’s wrong with them? What does that mean? And and how do I get through it? And so that’s what people have me do. I’m I’m in the new UN right now and and I’m talking about family issues and women’s issues, but I’m talking about how to heal families here. And then after that, I go straight to Dallas to help a family in their home to do a home visit with them for a few days to help with their children. And so that’s, you know, and then I’m off to conferences. This is kind of my busiest time of year, but that’s sort of what my life’s like.

Dr. Amy Moore 8:22

So I want to talk about the name of the BBC show, um, The World’s Strictest Parents, because I have listeners who are probably saying, yeah, this show is not for me right now. Right. But you talk about in your book how you were a little kind of, you know, put off by the title of that show at first, too. Because what do you mean, the world’s strictest parents? But you did a little digging on what that actually meant, like what the word strict means. And it was this aha moment for you when you decided to engage in that. Talk a little bit about that so that it kind of lowers the temperature on what our listeners might be here, you know, feeling right now.

Nicholeen Peck 9:03

Sure, sure. Um, because yeah, absolutely, not an honorary parent. So when I was asked to be on the world’s strictest parents, um, I was nervous about that. You know, I I was helping people around. I thought it would be short-lived. And and I wasn’t actually that interested in being on the program. I didn’t want to be on the program. I I was in TV production for a little while in my youth, and I know what can happen on a cutting room floor and how things can get changed out from under you. And I thought, I don’t know if I would even be respected in this program. And and by the way, people can see it on my website in the in under the blog tab on teachingselfgovernment.com if they ever want to go see it. But anyway, um, yeah, I was I was a little worried about that. And and I and I, even though I felt like I should do the program, I still thought, what is gonna happen? How are they gonna, how are they gonna spin this and portray this? And and really I’m not strict, so I don’t like that I’m gonna be called strict. And so one day I was actually at a water aerobics class that I was teaching at the time, and this older woman, a teacher, a really wise lady, she was like in her 70s, and I said, I’m gonna be on this program. It’s called the world’s strictest parents, and I just have a hard time with that because I’m not strict. And she said, Whoa, Nicoline. And I said, What? She said, You are the strictest parent that I know. And I was like, What? I I was offended by that. And she said, she said, Nicoline, a strict parent does not need to yell. And I thought, okay, wait, hold on. That just might have thrown it on the head for me. Like, I always see strict as yelling. So then I started envisioning this moment when I was young and my mom used to get angry and she’d just give me that look, you know, that look. Yes, I know that look. You know, or or that little whisper in the ear, like, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba- you know, that kind of a thing. And I’m like, but I’m not that either, you know. And she said, Nicoline, I’m not even gonna say anymore. She’s like, just go look the word up. Because she’s a teacher, right? She’s like, just look it up. I said, okay. So I went home and I looked up the word strict in Webster’s 1828 dictionary, which is my one of my favorite books to learn from, because the words aren’t changed yet in there. They’re what they really mean. And it said that when you were strict, that that meant that you were a person who governed yourselves by but governed yourself by a certain set of principles. So basically, that your principles and your practice match each other. And I thought, oh, oh, I am strict. And it was interesting that as the show progressed, the people in charge of the show said to me in a pre-interview, they said, Well, would you consider yourself a strict parent? And I said, No, I don’t yell at my children or anything like that. And they said, Well, would you let your kids get tattoos? Would you let them do drugs? Would you let them go hang out at the pub? And I said, No. And they said, Well, then you’re strict. And I thought, well, that’s a pretty low bar. Okay, because like almost everyone I know would be like, no, I don’t want my children doing drugs and hanging out at the pub and, you know, getting tattooed and all that kind of stuff. And so um I realized that their definition of strict was something that I absolutely was, but also the real definition of strict, too, was something that I absolutely was. So then I had to decide at that moment was I going to keep rejecting the term strict or was I just going to embrace it? Because is it is it possible that society doesn’t understand strict? That because society is so emotional that they just equate that word with someone who emotionally reacts, when in reality, a strictness is a person who, like my friend said, would not need to yell. They would never yell because they would be in control of themselves. They would be self-governing, and they would be able to listen, understand, talk, negotiate. They would be able to do all those things, which are things that I do and teach my children how to do. So we always have a place of understanding because we’re strict, and it’s not like supreme authority or dominance, um, which I think some people probably, you know, would associate that word with.

Dr. Amy Moore 13:39

Sure. I mean, we think of the Catholic nuns, you know, wrapping kids’ hands with rulers and, you know, my piano teacher who would use a sharp pencil underneath my hands if I, you know, didn’t have them up high enough, you know, while I was playing. That’s that’s what we think of when we think of the word strict. And so I can imagine that you sort of had that visceral response at first, too. So I really wanted you to be able to spend a couple of minutes clarifying that. So that then I can ask the follow-up question. What was it about this parenting approach that appealed to the BBC show? And then in turn was the reason why people said, Where’s your book? We want to learn this. What was it? What was the foundation of this approach that had so much appeal?

Why The BBC Featured Their Home

Nicholeen Peck 14:34

Yeah, I don’t think the BBC knew what they were in for, actually, if I’m gonna be completely honest. So they got referred to us. Um, they were like, hmm, how do we find strict parents? Well, strict parents, they almost always put their children in music lessons, right? And my children were very musical. And so they started contacting music teachers of note in the area. And our teacher was one of those like composers, kind of a big name. And he actually referred them to us. They were like, Hey, do you know any parents that would be, you know, really good with troubled teens and stuff like that, and that would be strict? And he was like, Oh, yeah, because he knew that we had taken in troubled teens and he knew they how they had turned out and everything. And so he just referred without even, you know, asking me. So I was just like, okay. So then they came out, and I don’t, I think there were a couple of homes that they were choosing between out in the mountain west when they were trying to pick who they wanted to, you know, do the program with. And they came to our house, and what they were gonna see at our house was a family who was very, very united. I mean, we all cooked together, we worked together, we prayed together, we’d say the Pledge of Allegiance every day together, we read books every day and played games. And I mean, we were just very, very like this family unit, you know, super tight. And I think that was a bit of a culture like shock to them. That wow, a family is that connected. They’re not watching TV every day. These guys are like, they’re having interactions the whole day long. And so that would be very fun to film, right? Because it’s gonna be not boring. And and they could see that there was a maturity in my children, even though they were younger. They that they seemed to understand a lot and they seemed to present themselves in a very mature way. And then they saw how we interacted on a like a parenting level. So not just the relationships and how much we enjoyed each other’s company and how just free-flowing the relationship was and open. But they also saw that if I needed my children to do something, that I would say, hey, I’m gonna give you an instruction. And that my children know that if I say, I’m gonna give you an instruction, that that’s a cue that I’m gonna look, that they need to look at the person, keep a calm face, voice, and body, say, okay, or ask to disagree appropriately, do the task immediately and then check back. That they’re gonna do all five of those things because they just know it. They’ve learned it from the time they were just little babies, and that they’re gonna be calm and they know how to be calm. And if they don’t feel like they want to do it, then they’re gonna do another skill called disagreeing appropriately. And so then they’re gonna ask, okay, mom, but may I disagree appropriately? And then then they’ll go through the seven-step process of disagreeing appropriately. And it’s all very understood. Like everyone knows how we’re gonna troubleshoot every situation in our house. And I think that kind of blew their mind. And I think they thought, yeah, but can she do it when people just get dropped off at their house? And they really wanted to put it to the test. And so, and you know, of course, my husband too. I mean, we both, you know, that’s just how we raised our children. And I don’t know if I would have been that um concrete with my own children, maybe, had I not had all those years of doing that treatment foster care with those troubled youth. But we just did that for them because they really needed the consistency so strong. And then our children were just raised from babies like that because that’s when we started taking in those troubled youth. And so for them, it was just normal life, you know? And but we knew that whoever we brought in, we knew exactly how to train them on what we were gonna do and how we would handle it. And so we really weren’t concerned. And they actually said that they found us what they called, you know, the most difficult or the worst um teens that they’d ever brought on a program before. They were school dropouts, they were one of them was in danger of getting kicked out of their house, one was a teen mom, they both had serious drug addictions, one was prostituting, there was just a lot of things that were going on. And um, and after they came to our home for eight days, they were actually crying at the end and begging not to leave. And people were changed by that. They were saying, please don’t make us go. We feel so safe here. Even our families won’t understand why we don’t want to say those types of words and and why we we want to live our lives differently, we want to do different things. And they both went back and got out of the party lifestyle that they were in, took responsibilities for their lives. Um, one of them got married and had a family, and another one went to university. I mean, had to catch up on a lot of school, right? But then went to university, got a degree in something he decided to get a degree at in and when he was at my house. He he told me he we read a book called The Dream Giver, and together the week they were there, and he said I had a he had a dream to be a designer and um like a clothing designer. And so I said, Well, have you ever sewn anything? And he’s like, No. And I said, Well, how about I teach you? So we sewed a a skirt for his mom that week, and he was thrilled. He was amazed. And and lo and behold, if he isn’t a designer over in London. So Wow.

Dr. Amy Moore 20:18

Was this in America or was this in London?

Nicholeen Peck 20:20

Where this was in America, but they brought them over from England. Yeah.

Dr. Amy Moore 20:25

So did they think that that was to provide additional entertainment to the British by watching how American families do these things?

Sponsor Break And Support Resources

Nicholeen Peck 20:36

Or was it a global show? Oh no, I think so. I I think that was part of it. It was like the whole premise of the show was you bring these troubled teens from a place where nobody is exercising any parental authority. They’re probably in a dysfunctional setting. You take them to a whole other place in the world. So now people get to have a travel show. So you take them to a different place in the world, you plant them in another family where those families completely understand their roles as parents. And then you see what happens and you see what sparks might fly. And I think the whole idea is to see those moments of clash, right? Sure. Yeah, well, because the parents are told, like, we were told, listen, you have to treat it as if these were your children, and suddenly one day they come home like this. What are you gonna do? And I mean, lucky for us, we’d already, you know, raised, we we’d already taken in people like that. So it was like, well, we actually know what to do. And um, and I’m not the type of parent that feels like my success in parenting is pleasing my children. I think that there’s a lot of Parents that feel like their value comes or their sign of success as being a parent is if their children are pleased by them. And so they spend a lot of time just worrying about the emotions of the child and trying to please that. And I’m not like that because I’m trying to create a young person who can be self-governing, who can be strong and confident, and can also care and understand and feel like they’re part of a group, but not just be themselves and their own feelings, and because then they’ll be isolated in the world. And I didn’t want any of the troubled youth that came to my home or any of my biological children to end up leaving my home feeling like they were going to be isolated everywhere because somebody didn’t coddle to them. I needed to help them be successful. And we were, and that’s why people kept asking us to do stuff.

Sandy Zamalis 22:52

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Building A System With Family Vision

Dr. Amy Moore 24:46

So I’m sure when you then went to put all of this in a book, right, and make this a structured training program, right, for parents, did you have to go back and put a structure to what you were already doing, to the heart of what you were doing? Or had you and your husband sat down ahead of time and and created an approach?

Nicholeen Peck 25:12

Which came first? Yeah, I would say, I mean, there was a little bit of each, right? I would say the majority, a good 80%, we said, okay, if we’re bringing these troubled youth into our house, then we’ve got to we’ve got to talk about a lot of things here. Are we gonna be a TV family or not a TV family? Because what’s that gonna do to the environment? What do they really need from parents? So we went kind of deep, and I’m not sure if everybody goes as deep as we did, but we thought that what are they really needing? What are they really lacking? They need bonding, they need belonging, they need to have real experiences with real people, you know, and and not just digital experiences. And we need to not be disconnected from them. We need to make sure that we’re really dialed in. And so we did, we made plans and we decided we were going to have meetings where we would check up on our progress, that we were going to create skills for how we were going to solve all the problems, and that we would teach it to everybody. So there was no surprises because almost all the youth coming to our home were going to be high anxiety youth because they were neurodiverse, many of them. They’d had trauma, they don’t know skills. So you think of all that, they’re anxious. I mean, children anyway are anxious, but they were, they had even more anxiety. And so it had to be everything was on the table. This is these are the consequences, and here’s how you can choose always to keep your the positive consequences and not have to worry about the negative ones. And but if so, no big deal because we’re all learning and we’ll just go through this process together and we’ll learn the skills that you need to be successful. And so we were supportive the whole way along, and we planned that. But as you go, you get better, right? So as you go, you get better, and then you find out some things where you say, you know, so with those youth that came to our home, they were on like a point system, and you know, and there were certain points for different things, and we didn’t have to do the point, like the point system was not our idea. That was the foster group that was bringing it to us, that’s how they tracked the progress of the youth, which was through this point system. So we had to use a point system, but for our own children, we were like, well, we’re not putting them on a point system for their whole life. That’s not realistic. And that’s not normal life, you know? And so we had to come up with and we had to experiment a little bit with what consequences and and lessons that they were gonna need that were something that would be more organic to real family life than, say, a point system. We also um ended up creating our family vision, which if you’ve read the book, you know that’s central. It’s like this piece where you decide as a family what type of a family do we want to be. And we didn’t do that until a little ways in, you know, to our parenting. And we realized we have to have something to hold on to here. And even those young people coming to our home, they need to see their what is their life gonna be in the future. And a lot of people who are autistic or neurodiverse, they don’t plan ahead well. They have a hard time seeing it or caring about it. And so we wanted to try to help them make a plan for their lives. So that naturally led to our family making a vision. And that became really foundational to the reason why we would care about doing any of the things that we were gonna teach our children. And my children, all four of my children, just like me and my husband, are very strong-willed, um, which is why when I finally decided not to lie, I was gonna stay to that because I’m strong-willed. When a strong-willed person finds a truth, they stick to it, you know? And um, that’s why I’m at the United Nations today, because I’m advocating for families. There’s a lot of lies that are told here about families. And and I just really like to come and tell them the truth so that we don’t lead people astray around the world because there’s so many families that are suffering.

Influences From Psychology And History

Dr. Amy Moore 29:26

Sure. Yeah, that that part of your book actually really resonated with me because I I coach parents in being very specific about defining their values. What do we value as a family? What do we value as parents? Because then we have to align all of our parenting decisions with those values. And so it was a very similar idea. Um, but what I loved about it was you were super specific about the questions that you all ask yourselves in defining what your or creating what your family vision should be. And I think that that’s one of the hardest things to do is when you are trying to determine what do we value as a family, what do we want, you know, our kids to look back on 30 years from now and remember about who we are, right? Those are questions that if you’re not specific enough, right, then you could be, you know, nailing jello to a wall, trying to, you know, come up with something that is then your roadmap. And so you don’t want to end up in the desert. Um, you know, you want to stay in your city. So um, anyway, so I really appreciated that part um of your approach. What um what would you say uh served as inspiration for the decisions that you made in creating your approach? Who were your theoretical inspirations? Like what, you know, what who from psychology, who from the education field or the counseling world or research, was there something specific that you could point to that inspired you? Or was it like just in the trenches, trial and error, and this is what I know about human behavior?

Nicholeen Peck 31:13

I mean, there’s some of each, but I will say, you know, so some of my when I was young, I told you about the lying story. I had another experience when I was 14. Honestly, my whole attitude and life and relationships at age 14 just got turned on its head. I was going down this attitude track. I was I was really kind of pulling away from my parents. That happens sometimes around that age. And um, and this friend, you know, talked to me about my lying. But then also this um vice principal at my high school, I mean at my junior high, um, he said to me that I could choose to be happy one day. So I asked him how he was, and he said, I’m happy, thank you. And I said, Why did you say that? And he said, Well, why would I choose to be any other way? And I was like, Whoa, I could choose, I just choose it. I just pick happy? Holy cow, how is that even possible, you know? And then he said to me, Well, Nicoline, sure, I might not be happy right in the minute, but when somebody asks me, it reminds me that I have a choice that right then if I’m gonna pick happy and not. And I was like, oh my word, I want that kind of power. And he was a World War II vet. He was just, you know, so inspiring. And so I saw that as just a power thing to be able to make a choice and stick to it and not be emotional. When you’re a 14-year-old, you know, puberty and all this stuff’s going on. It’s like that just seems like beyond belief, right? And so I held on to that. But then the I had another neighbor, it was actually the parent of the girl who talked to me about my lying. And I, and I was talking to her one day about the situation with my parents and how me and my parents weren’t getting along and they weren’t letting me do a lot of things. And then she challenged me with a question and she said, Nicoline, have you ever thought of just saying okay? And I said, What? That would never work. That’s what they want me to say, because I’m strong-willed, right? And she said, she said, No, you know what? I’m gonna challenge you. You go home, and for two weeks, every time your parents tell you to do something or not to do something, say okay and be okay. Which means I had to choose to say it and believe it. That I really was okay. That was a huge test. I told her it wasn’t gonna work. They still weren’t gonna like me and they weren’t gonna let me do anything I wanted. I told her she couldn’t talk to my parents because I wanted an authentic test, right? And so she said I wouldn’t that she wouldn’t do that. And uh, so I I went home and I started saying okay and being okay. And within days, things changed. And within weeks, it was like, yeah, you can go to a party and you can have people over. And and suddenly the trust in my relationship with my parents totally adjusted. So this was like at age 14, almost preparing me to take in 14-year-olds that needed vital lessons, right? And it changed me, it changed everything. So that was the start of this skill development, these personal skills that I was developing. And so I had this skill set that I trained myself on for how to say okay and be okay when something was an instruction or a no answer. So there we see following instructions, accepting no answers. They were born. Okay. And then there was the the lying. I learned how to recognize if I wanted to say something, stop myself. These were trained, this is how I trained myself. Stop myself, question, is this the truth? And if the answer was yes, then I would, I would take a little step forward and I would say whatever it is. But if the answer was no, I would turn and I would, I would leave the situation so that I didn’t accidentally lie. And I had to train myself to do that again and again. Well, when I started taking in the foster children, I realized I am kind of high strung. And so not being calm is going to be a problem because then we’re, I’m just gonna power struggle with them. If I don’t, if I’m not calm when they’re not calm, it’s just gonna fuel the fire. And I can’t do that. I’ve got to be able to, I’ve got to be able to, you know, smother the fire so that then we can get to a place where we can talk about the issue, right? And so the only way to put out that fire is for you not to fuel it. No oxygen in the room. So I can’t fight. I cannot fight. And so I had to do the same type of process of lying where I would say, okay, what’s going on? This is a power struggle. And then I would take a little step back and check myself and I would say, Am I calm? And if the answer was yes, then I would take a step forward and I would follow a script. I gave myself a script, and you have no idea how much of a sacrifice that is for a person like me. Because right now I’m talking to you for how long with no script whatsoever? Because I am an off the cuff, speak in front of any group, act on stage, improv person to speak from a script is a major sacrifice for me. But it was the only way I was going to be able to keep myself completely self-governed, and the only way I could be predictable for them and for their anxiety and stick to what I wanted them to do. So I would check myself for calmness, I would use my script, and then they would go into front brain from their midbrain, go to front brain and be able to pull themselves together because it was the same every single time. But that stuff combined with what the Utah Youth Village, who I was doing this treatment care for, had done with part of their training and their system of skills and stuff that they had introduced, and some of their skills of talking through the parenting stuff on the other side, was actually fantastic. So the point cards, not so fantastic, but I see why they did it. But the but the training that I got with them was actually really incredible. And a lot of it was uh based on a lot of a boys’ town model. And so there was that. Then, of course, I studied a lot with brain development and a lot of different psychologists, and um and I studied what went wrong with psychology too. So, you know, Carl Rogers and um William Colson, his colleague, changed the face of psychology. They brought in non-directive psychotherapy. And non-directive psychotherapy actually corrupted the field of psychology. I mean, we might say it may have its place sometimes, but it actually warped psychology into now when I have a problem, I’m not going to get advice. They’re going to tell me to go do whatever feels good for me. And so now I could go amoral that fast. And this is a problem. And so I thought, oh my goodness, look at what has happened. No wonder we’re having so many problems. There’s so much entitlement. People are going to get help, but they’re not getting help. And then there’s this other branch of psychology, which is um cognitive behavioral therapy, okay? CBT. And and CBT is not the type, it’s not like um, it’s not like DBT, they’re different. Um, and it doesn’t enable, and it doesn’t um, it doesn’t coddle in any way. Instead, it says, let’s help you sort it out, right? Let’s help you look at exactly what you’re thinking, why you might be thinking that, and let’s challenge it. Let’s say, is that where I want to stay? Or could anything else be true? Could anything else be true or correct? And so we start to challenge. And so, of course, you know, I’m I love learning. And I was just learning, learning, learning all these things, you know, along my life’s journey, as well as doing the training for the treatment care. And so it’s all just coming together in this picture. But also, um, honestly, this is going to be interesting to say, but studying the lives of the founders of our country, um, studying the lives of like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, and these guys who are talking about the concept of um the pursuit of happiness. The pursuit of happiness means self-government. That means being able to be in control of yourself. They were obsessed with this concept. And that’s what led to the founding of the United States of America, was this concept that we could be in control of ourselves. We don’t have to have somebody else tell us what to do all the time. And um, and they were all shooting for it. They didn’t achieve perfection at it in their lives. I don’t know if any of us all the way do, right? But that’s what they were going toward. And so I started studying them. I started studying a whole bunch of books about leadership and training others, and of course, into education and how to do proper education. And so I’m putting all these things together and then, you know, bringing in also just the principles, too, out of my faith. You know, I’m a Christian person, and so there’s things that you see, like in the Bible, that are like, well, I mean, that’s how people learn, you know, and you see that in other books. And, you know, not that this is a specifically uh religious, you know, thing, but but you just hook all truths together, and it and this is what I came up with. And it’s been liberating for me and and not just me, but people literally all over the world of every different faith camp, um, being able to recognize the truths that just hits them and they become different people because of it, which is the whole idea of self-government, is that you become a better version of yourself, a more deliberate version.

Dr. Amy Moore 40:54

All right. So now everybody’s all excited, right? They want what you’ve got, right? And so what is your advice to parents who are saying, okay, I I need this in my home. I need less conflict, I need more calm, I need, I need to be able to take, if you can take in total strangers and spend eight days with them and have them not want to leave, how do I do that with my own offspring?

Nicholeen Peck 41:27

Right. And I have to say, Amy, my heart just goes out to parents right now. So I’m gonna answer the question, but just you asking that question in that way, where you’re saying the grief that they’re feeling about maybe the lack of bonding or their hopes that they have with their own children and it’s not being realized. I mean, that just got really real there for a second, and I mean it kind of chokes me up a little bit because that’s why I do everything that I do uh for families, because they are in such pain. There are so many forces that are pulling our children’s allegiance away from family. It’s pulling their attention away from us, who are the ones that they were born to to do the training for them. We love them more than anybody else. We have the greatest interest in their success. More than teachers, more than government, more than friends, more than marketers, more than all the other people trying to get their attention. We are the ones who would not exploit them. Yet all of those other voices are spinning it to make it seem like the parents are the exploiters. The parents are the ones that hate, and the youth are getting just sucked right into all kinds of things, and they’re and when they get sucked into that, they’re so isolated. And so there’s people who are living in the same homes and they’re not connected, they don’t feel like they belong with each other, and they’re not talking, and when they do talk, the sparks are flying in unhealthy ways. And it is hard, and sometimes it starts when they’re really tiny. And my suggestion to you is this you have to turn your attention back toward belonging and bonding. So, in my book, you’re gonna learn how to talk, and and maybe the course might even be an easier way to do it. I do three-day trainings, and there’s courses that people can do, online courses, all on my website on teaching selfgovernment.com. And maybe that’s a way to go where you can get the full training and be able to step by step through it and get some mentoring. You can ask us questions along the way and stuff. Um, but you have to put not just the skills in place, you’ve got to put the focus on yourself not taking it personal. If they have a misbehavior, don’t take it personal. Even if maybe somewhere down the line you misbehaved and they’re copying you. Don’t take their behavior personally. When they’re having a behavior, you say to yourself, okay, am I ready? Am I calm? Can I love them right now? Can I look at them in the moment where they’re actually yelling in my face and send through my eyes to their eyes, to their heart, I love you. I love you. Can I do that? And I hope you can find yourself enough courage to say, yes, I can. And I’m not going to take it personal anymore. I’m not going to feel beat down. I’m not going to tell myself I’m beat down. They need me. And when they’re like this, they’re saying, I need you. I need you to help me through this. And so we have to change our mindset. And that’s huge. And I’m sure you saw that in the in the book, Parenting House United. I’m sure you saw that there is an amount of it that is the way you see it matters. Right? You can think an extra chore is horrible because you hate extra chores, or you can think it builds character because it does. Okay. But it’s just the way you see it. And you can think if you give your child the chore, that that’s a mean thing to do, or you could say, actually, that’s a really nice thing to do because chores are never, work is never going to bug my child. They’re going to be one of the strong ones. Right? But if you go, oh, I’m going to have you do the dishes. So sorry, honey, then that makes them think you have done a bad thing to them. Right? So mindset’s huge. The bonding is huge. Reaching out to them always, even if they push you away, just keep reaching. Just keep reaching. Not in annoying, controlling ways, but in ways where you truly think I love you, which means I also recognize you’re having a hard time right now. And I don’t expect that you are going to be instantly better like this. But I also know my role. So I have that whole book about roles. And that’s a vital thing because our society has turned roles on its head. And you need to have a conversation with your child about it. You need to say, who are you in this family? Who am I in this family? If you say to a 15-year-old girl, what is the role of mother? She’ll be able to say, Well, she’s there for us, she watches over us, she helps us, she takes care of us, you know, she’ll they’ll be able to say stuff. Some of them might even say, She’s a nurturer. And then if you say, What’s the role of father? They’ll say, Well, he’s a protector, he provides for us, he’s a provider, you know, he tickles us and wrestles, he has fun, you know, they’ll say things about him, and then you’ll say, Yeah. And then if you say, What’s the role of 15-year-old daughter? They’ll go, because they don’t know who they are. They actually don’t know. And so then you have to go, well, I mean, what do you do all day? Well, school? I guess I’m a learner. And then you say, Yeah, you’re a learner. And another thing about mom is I’m a teacher, and dad’s a teacher. Anyone that comes before you can teach you things, and and that’s what we’re actually here for in your life, is to teach you. And if the teacher doesn’t teach, or the learner refuses to learn, the family has dysfunction and everybody feels lonely, misunderstood, and isolated. So we’ve got to make a plan for how we’re gonna do the teaching and the learning so that everybody does their job. Because because we don’t we don’t really want to feel angry and alone anymore in our family, right? And you just say, I’m so sorry that I wasn’t doing it right, but we’re gonna learn some new skills. A lot of people will even do the course with their children. Must as well teach it to them because there’s no surprises in it. There shouldn’t be. Otherwise, there would be manipulation. So you do that. Um, and then you then you’ll start working on those skills. And at first you might bump along a little bit because you got to overcome your old habits and stuff. But as long as you tell them, listen, we’re gonna learn a new way to communicate with each other. We’re gonna new learn a new way to solve our problems. And as long as you explain to them that it’s not gonna be perfect at first, then when you have a moment that’s not perfect, they’re gonna be able to accept that. It’s gonna be able to be okay. So, yeah.

Dr. Amy Moore 48:20

And what’s your advice then for, you know, the teen who resists uh some of this collaboration?

Nicholeen Peck 48:30

And they will. So that’s yeah, that’s a thing. I mean, you have to be patient, but when I go to somebody’s house to do training, which like I said, I’m gonna be going tomorrow morning actually to Dallas and so I’ll be doing a training. And there’s gonna be some really strong-willed people, strong-willed teens in that family. And I’ll say to them, I’ll say, Hey, listen, um, you know why I’m here? Your parents actually feel like they they aren’t doing a very good job. And they want somebody to give them some ideas of some things that they can do to maybe help you have your way a little bit more because they’re recognizing they’re not understanding you like they should. Would you like them to understand you a little bit more? So I appeal to the selfish. What is it do they want? They want to be understood, they want freedom. Do you want more freedom? Because they would like to be able to give you more freedom. But we’ve got to get things balanced out, and then that can happen, right? So let’s just talk about the formula for how you get understood, get more freedom, get more of the things that you want. And then as we start learning about the skills, and they’re like, oh man, I don’t want to do that, because a lot of them don’t like to take personal responsibility, right? As they start learning those skills, then I say, um, so this is the time that we’re teaching them. You can pay attention and you can do it, or you can not, because you have a choice, but this is the time we’re teaching them. And so if you don’t pay attention, then you won’t know if they do it wrong. So you’ll just have to suffer through. It all comes back to cause and effect, Amy. And you have to speak through that lens to them. They’re used to being like cajoled, you know? They’re used to people trying to move them through little things without them having a choice. And people using emotions to do that. No, not with self-government. You just lay it out. Here it is, and there’s nothing mean about this. In fact, it’s as it’s the nicest thing, most merciful thing I could do is to tell you the exact words I will use with you every single time. And to tell you what to do if you feel like I am losing, I’m not following the script. I’m not doing it right. I’ll even give you the way to help bring me back to reality. And so you give the everybody everything. So now there’s rules of engagement. So now there doesn’t have to be fights. That doesn’t mean that your oppositional defiant or ADHD child won’t still have a little bit of a struggle at first because they are, they have a fast track to the back brain that they have worked on. You know, it’s like a rut for a while. And so it takes a little bit of training and practice for them to get to a place where they are not going to go to that fast track anymore. They have to really work through that. And so sometimes they get worse and then they get better because they have to test you, like, oh no, I don’t want to do this. I’m gonna, I’m gonna try to break it down. And when they realize it’s just principles, it’s just skills, I can’t break that. Then suddenly they go, okay, well, I I guess I better try to just do it. And so does the heart change immediately? I I wish I could say the answer is yes. Some people have a heart change from the inside out. They go, Oh, that’s true. I’m gonna change my behavior. And there’s a huge percentage of people that do that. But then there’s some people who you have to help them change their behavior, and then their heart changes and goes, Oh, that’s true. I should have done that. So that’s that heart change from the outside in versus the heart change from the inside out.

Dr. Amy Moore 52:06

So Yeah, and it sounds like, you know, this approach is meeting those basic psychological needs for autonomy and competence and relatedness and all, you know, all from, you know, that approach of you have a choice here, you have some control here, you have specific things that you can say and practice and scripts that you can run, and the expectations are clear.

Nicholeen Peck 52:30

And so yeah, it’s not manipulative at all. Which when you’re actually a permissive parent and you’re just like, I just want to be their friend, you’re actually super manipulative because you’re just playing on their emotions to what friend feels like for you at any given minute. When you’re a bully, fear-based parent, you’re angry all the time, you’re also manipulating all the time, just to try to get them to be afraid. And I just believe in honesty. So here we are back to the honesty discussion again, right? But I’m like, if it’s not honest, I’m not in. And so this is the completely honest, upfront, you know, forthright approach to parenting where then actually you’re respected. My children and I, I mean, outside of my husband, they are my best friends, 100%. And we call and talk all the time. And and if we don’t talk every so often, everyone starts feeling like something’s wrong. Not that, not that anything is, but it’s like we just miss each other. They are my best friends. They know every single way that I tick and what I would say and do for anything. And when they have hardships in college or, you know, something happens, they’ll call me up and they’ll say, Well, mom, um, you know, I broke up with that girl or that girl broke up with me. That’s just one of those no answers of life. So I’m just working on dropping the subject and I’m like, good for you. Or they’ll say, Mom, we have family meetings in our apartment, and I’ll say, good for you, because they’re like, we have to, mom, or it goes to chaos. No one wants to do their dishes. We’ve got to have family meetings. And I’m like, good for you. And so they just start leading out because they just know that’s an effective way to communicate. So when they’re in business, they instantly become the leaders. They’re the ones people can usually trust and count on because they’re significantly more mature because they know how to solve problems and they know how to not take things personally.

Dr. Amy Moore 54:22

Yeah.

Nicholeen Peck 54:23

But they care at the same time. I think some people think if you’re not emotional with each other when you’re solving problems, then somehow you’re cold. Um, but my children care deeply care. They serve their fellow men. But they don’t take things personally. That doesn’t mean they don’t ever have a hard day and cry, though. And there’s a difference between stuffing emotions, and this is something I always like to share because I think people think that I’m suggesting that that I’m teaching children how to like stuff emotions if I had a problem. Totally the opposite. I want to open the door to more conversation. But we can’t solve a problem until we get to a place where we’re in our front brain. So we have to help us get to our front brain first, and then let’s talk it all out. Let’s make sure we understand, right? But um, but stuffing is when you don’t drop the subject in your head. You just keep going on it, you know, again and again, ruminating, ruminating again and again, and you never let it go that you didn’t have that conversation. But when a person is really emotionally strong, they can say, you know what? Um, I didn’t get the promotion at work. So no answer. I’m gonna go talk to them about it, but then if I still am not satisfied, it is what it is, and I’m not gonna keep holding on to that. I’m gonna let it go because I’m gonna choose for that not to be part of something I carry. And that is the skill accepting no answers to be able to drop the subject. That’s one of the steps in one of those four basic skills of self-government. And that’s a sign of a really strong, healthy person. Because you’re not gonna have everything go your go your way. I mean, are you gonna have to talk about every person that cuts you off in traffic every single day, every single time it happens? That’s a burden for life.

Where To Start And Final Takeaways

Dr. Amy Moore 56:11

That’s a burden for all know those people, right? Right. Who carry that. Exactly. So, Nicoline, share with our listeners how can they find more from you? If they want to learn more about this approach, how would they get started? Where can they find you?

Nicholeen Peck 56:28

Well, definitely teaching selfgovernment.com. That’s gonna be the best place. In fact, on there, on the website, the homepage, there is a free calm parenting toolkit. If you want to just get your feet wet on something, it’s completely free. It’s a 10-lesson toolkit. I mean, there’s places you can find all kinds of stuff. I’ve got my own podcast. There’s YouTube channels, there’s books, there’s trainings. If you want to learn the whole thing, you have to do one of the like, you know, courses or trainings or whatever, and you got to read like some of the books or something. Like you have to invest a little bit because in a 10-minute YouTube, you can’t ever get to, you know, like the whole program. But um, but yeah, teachmeself government.com, that’s gonna be the place to go. Maybe start with that calm parenting toolkit, and then after that, start going to learn all the skills that you need for correcting the problems and staying um using those calmness things now, bringing into okay, now what are the skills I’m gonna teach my children and how am I gonna hold us accountable and that type of thing, um, which it truly is gonna be life-changing. So I would do that. There’s a community on there where there’s like weekly calls you can get together with mentors and people that I train. I answer people’s questions every week. I mean, just depending on how you learn, there’s all the ways on there. But my biggest recommendation is to get into the course or one of the three-day trainings because then you’ll get all of it and it’ll take you step by step through it. You’ll probably be the most successful.

Dr. Amy Moore 57:53

All right, fantastic. Nicoline Peck, thank you so much for taking time out of your very busy schedule to share your wisdom with our listeners today. I will put all of those links that you just mentioned in our show notes so that um our listeners can find you if they want more from you, which I’m sure they will.

Nicholeen Peck 58:15

Thank you, Amy, and thanks for having me. Um, this is a great podcast, and and you guys are just bringing so much to people to support parents in all the things that they are doing. So anyway, I loved being part of it, and you’re such a fun person to talk to. So thanks for having me.

Dr. Amy Moore 58:31

Yeah, thanks for being here. Hey, thanks for tuning in to today’s episode. Wondering what’s next? Well, don’t forget to sign up for our free monthly newsletter at theBrainyMoms.com. Be sure to follow us on social media at the Brainy Moms and subscribe to our YouTube channel at the Brainy Moms Podcast. And last, check out our sponsor at learningrx.com.