Last Saturday LEMI featured Nicholeen Peck on their monthly conference call. I enjoyed her presentation. She applied parenting to mentoring youth groups. Some of you may  not know about Nicholeen. Nicholeen is a mother of four and author of the above book. She is also a LEMI-trained mentor, having mentored the Shakespeare Conquest project. (LEMI stands for Leadership Education Mentoring Institute, see http://thelemi.com) She has some terrific ideas in her book about how to discipline children so that they choose to change their hearts and become self-governing. (It’s a great book but poorly edited so be forewarned if that bothers you.) She teaches the four skills every child should know and how to teach them to children, such as how to take a no answer and how to receive an instruction. This is something every parent-child relationship needs to be clear on!

In the call Nicholeen shared two things that I thought were such gems for parenting. She said that tone and structure are two big things you can use to communicate love to your children and any children you are mentoring outside of your family.

She spoke about how important it is to have a calm tone. That is something that came naturally to my dear mother. She never raised her voice, not even once. She is the most mellow person I know. I, however, am not my mother and struggle to be patient and calm when ticked off by a child’s antics. I am working on it though.

Here is a gem of a quote Nicholeen shared by author William Jordan.

Calmness is the rarest quality in human life. It is the poise of a great nature, in harmony with itself and its ideals. It is the moral atmosphere of a life self-centred, self-reliant, and self-controlled. Calmness is singleness of purpose, absolute confidence, and conscious power, ready to be focused in an instant to meet any crisis.

You can get this book that Nicholeen quotes from free at the following links.

http://www.booksshouldbefree.com/book/the-majesty-of-calmness-by-william-george-jordan

http://www.readbookonline.net/books/Jordan/475/

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/mjcmn10h.htm

If you would like to get Nicholeen’s book, go to http://teachingselfgovernment.com and click on the “shop” tab. I highly recommend her products for the solutions to all your child discipline problems! Use the coupon code “LEMILEMI” to get 15% off. I don’t know how long it lasts, so don’t delay your order.

Also, I just got word that she is going to be on the radio today!

Here is her message:

“This is a friendly reminder about the radio appearance I have today, Thursday at 5:00 pm MST.  It will be on 1480 am in Utah, or live and recorded online at http://bj.utahvalleylive.com“

(I assume she means MDT, not MST, since we are on Daylight Savings time now.)

Here is a YouTube video with an interview with Nicholeen about Nicholeen’s TV debut on the BBC series World’s Strictest Parent: