02 Battle of the Wills

you have a child or children who threaten to burst your bubble, drain your dreams, and stop your boat from being afloat?

Its all about the wills, yours or theirs. That is human nature. Children are no different then adults. They want their way. And they will do what it takes to get their way. They watch and study you and then implement their plans. If you let their ill conceived plans work on and off or all the time you will get a persistently naughty child. When their ill plan works on and off it is very hard to change their minds on it. It is like a gamblers addiction. They do not know when they will win but just that they are bound to win sometime and so failure is just part of the game.

The best kept secret is that children want to please you. It is in their nature, makeup, evolution to please you. If it was not, parents would of refused to have children and the human race would of disappeared. So what is the switch, the switch from wanting to please to fighting you for their own will. Or you could ask what is the switch to turn on their desire to please?

This blog will look at those questions and begin to give you answers and techniques to having pleasant obedient children that will grow up to resist the ‘bad crowd’ and seek out success and happiness while making this world a better place for all of us.

You may think this is a hard thing to do, too complicated to figure out, too much to remember. Rest your mind, calm you anxieties. There is ONLY FOUR THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND AND FOUR THINGS TO REMEMBER. The four things to keep in mind are Me, Myself, and I, and the situation. The four things to remember are the four steps or stages the brain goes through over and over, they are Perception(from our senses), Emotions of basically fear and love, our Beliefs or thoughts, and our Actions or skills and habits.

How do these four things to keep in mind and four things to remember help us understand ourselves and others to the point of controlling our wills and successfully directing the wills of others? That is what I want to explain to you in a simple and graphic way.

The animals and figures that represent these concepts in the key below I call widgets. When the widgets are balanced we are at our most efficient and cooperative self. You can teach your children how to balance their widgets and their cooperation follows. I will use the widgets in cartoons to help make it easy and fun to explore. Basically, I want to help you learn to fish not just give you fish. When you understand the principles behind the techniques you can explore and invent your own techniques that work.

I WANT TO TEACH YOU HOW TO FISH.

You will learn to fish on yourself also, to bring your widgets in balance. Then you are the best resource of what to do, as your culture or traditions vary, and you will modify any techniques we give you.

You have the instinct to parent. But your parents or others in your childhood may have mixed up your widgets a bit or made them weaker. Don’t worry, it shouldn’t take too much to straighten you out. If you can not, well, we will try and coach you on how to work with who you are, your personality, so you can do the same for your child who may have a lot of your genetic make up. You could say, you were made for each other.

If you or your child were born with some hard to handle traits, or disabilities, or conditions that make it harder or just different to balance your or their widgets we will coach you on skills to cope and to help you and your child be the best they can, or in many or most cases better then if the problems never existed. We can even look at your family dynamics that may be getting in your way or the way of progress for your child and coach you on better coping and interacting. Perhaps what you need most is some understanding and personal support. We would love to do that too.

It will make more sense as we go. The next page gives you a better model. The posts will put it into practical situations on how to learn to fish.

Keep Your Boat Afloat