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Welcome to Conscious Discipline
and our time together. Today we're going to talk about the fifth
power of the Conscious Discipline program and it's the power of love,
which says see the best in each other.
It comes from the principle of what we
offer to others, we generate and experience within ourselves
Now this is a simple principle to demonstrate,
and an easy one to experience. So do this with me.
Right now, I want you to think of someone you adore,
just conjure up that image and let it just bubble up in your heart.
Put your focus on your heart. Take a breath,
and just wish that person
well. And then take a moment and
think, "How am I feeling right now?" So as we extend this
well wishing we bubble up inside with appreciation and gratitude
and the reverse is also true. So if I judge people or see people to be
lacking, or wrong, or
bad, then that generates within me that state of
irritation, that state of lack.
Now, the interesting thing is that the brain does not know pronouns.
It doesn't know you from me. Hate and love are both
internal biochemicals. We can't offer
love to one person and keep hate within. Or offer
hate to one person and keep love within. What we
offer to others we generate within ourselves.
Now, Conscious Discipline is a
brain-based program with the goal of permanent behavior change
in both adults and children. And as such we can think of it as
more than based just on a brain state model. It really is a
brain, mind, body experience.
and it explains why we go through life asking three
questions. 1. Am I Safe? 2.
am I loved and 3. What can I learn?
and these must be answered in
order. So, if the answer to the question
"Am I safe?" is "No," then the child is going to spend
all it's energy developing coping skills to get safe.
And all that energy that can be used for engaging,
and learning, and stuff is directed down to the lower center of the brain
where they develop coping strategies. Now, some of the coping strategies could be,
well, take a look. "I'm gonna hurt you before you
hurt me," that's a great coping strategy if you're not safe. Another one
might be, "tell you what. I'm gonna withdraw. I'm gonna
withdraw. I'll get so invisible
in the classroom no one will see me. And if he can't see me
he can't hurt me." So, but if the answer to the
question "Am I safe?" Is "yes," then
the brain asks the next question. "Am I loved?" If the answer to
that question is "no," then the child is going to develop
a whole set of coping skills
to get love.
Now, one of these coping skills is
"Well, negative attention is better than no attention at all, so I'm just gonna go for it
here, take the heck out of everybody around me." Another coping strategy
could be they try and get their way. "I'll do whatever it is to get my way," because they have defined
to get my way," because they have defined
"getting my way, if you give in to me, give me what I want," equals love.
So they spend their energy
trying to do this and many kids show up at school asking these basic questions
"Am I safe?"
and "Am I loved?" But let's say
the question to, I mean the answer to the question "Am I
loved?" is "yes," well, then you're up, BOOM
"What can I learn?" You become like an Olympic
athlete trying to take home the gold.
You're intensely motivated, engaging, and after, and just all over life.
So, many kids come to school asking that question
"What can I learn?" we call these kids the
good kids. And if you use a rewards and punishments
system in your classroom these will be the kids who go home with all the gold
hanging around them. They got all the gold medals and all the stickys and all the stars.
And if you're the kids in this classroom who were the "I am safe," or "I am loved" kids
you go home simply discouraged.
Over and over discouraged, until
finally you give up and quit. Conscious discipline empowers
parents and teachers to respond to each of
these questions "Am I safe?" "Am I loved?" and "What can I learn?"
in an optimal way through the environment and through their responses
to conflict moments. In Conscious Discipline also
is based on what we know best about the heart
brain connection. So we've come to know that the heart is more
than a pump. We used to think all it did was pump this blood all over our body.
But now we know that the heart actually is an intelligence.
It has its own intelligence. The same nuero transmitters that are in our brain
are in our hearts. So what happens then
is information comes to the environment, through our hearts, what sends out
an electromagnetic field, way out around
us. Kind of like a sensing device that's out around us and
emits electromagnetics and senses electromagnetic
fields coming in. So if
our motions are positive we feel good,
and appreciative, and grateful then it sends a message
up to our brain. "Yeah baby. You are safe and you are loved."
So, go for it. Be your olympic best." However, if our internal state,
if my heart is feeling worried and
irritated, and concerned, and grumpy, and frustrated,
then it sends off an incoherent pattern up to my brain
which says "Red Alert! No you're not safe," and
"No you are not loved." And the brain then shuts down,
the heart closes, and we go on our defensive
nature and our guard through life. Because of
this electro magnetic energy that comes off of us
as this wonderful intelligence, children know when
you're faking it. They know when you're faking calm,
and they know you're faking caring.
So what we want to do is we want to generate a pure
energy of love as we approach children.
In other words, we want to use this power of love to
interact with kids. And this brings us full circle to
this whole topic of the day, which is the power of love
and the skill is positive intent. In other words
being able to truly look at a child.
Whether they're looking at you and saying "You sorry no good,"
and they're just coming at you, to open your heart in that moment
probably is the hardest thing that we can learn to do,
but the most powerful tool we have available to us.
So now, I want you to think about this.
We spend an enormous amount of time
trying to discern the intentions of others.
We're always making stuff up. So let's just play a little game here.
So someone is going to call you on Friday.
and say "Yeah, I'm gonna call you on Friday, Becky," and they fail to call you on Friday.
Now, you see a slide and I want you to pick one of those.
What do you think is the reason, the
motivation. Why didn't I call?
One, I was just inconsiderate. Two, I lost track of
time. Three, I had a car wreck.
Or four, I had more important things to do then to bother calling
you. So, pick one of those.
What do you think? Why do you think I didn't call?
As you may guess, you have no idea. You're going to make it up.
You're going to make it up. Let's take this to kids.
So, you're looking at a slide now and you're seeing a little boy, Garret, and
he's kind of pounding on another little boy, Andrew. So he's
pounding on this kid. What do you think is Garret's
intent? Why is Garret doing this? One, you see on the slide,
to get back his bike. Two, to horse around and have fun.
Three, just to hurt Andrew.
Four, his pent up anger. Why do you think
he's doing this? Again,
we just make it up. We get to make up
the intent of others. Now,
this brings us back again to when I was
talking about the brain and the heart
because if we make it up negatively. If
we make up a child's intent negatively he's just trying to
be disrespectful, she's just trying to be mean,
he's just trying to make my day hard,
I can't believe they're doing this again. If I make up
up their intent negatively, three things happen.
One, we define the core of the
child as bad. Listen to this.
"Why did you hit her? You know better than to hit."
I.E. "You stupid child.
You're just stupid." Or you go like this. "What is our rule in this
class room about hitting?" I.E. "You stupid child."
"What should you be doing? How would you like it if other people treated you like this?"
I.E. "You stupid child."
Most of what we offer to kids is negative intent. We
define the core of them as bad.
The second thing it does is it keeps them stuck in the lower centers of their brain
because their heart sends off the alarm
and the answer to the questions "Am I safe?" and "Am I loved?" is
absolutely not. So it sticks in the lower centers of the brain,
where they're now trying to use coping skills
as opposed to learning new skills
and the third thing it does is it
teaches children how to cope with abandonment
and rejection, just like I said. So we're coping with abandonment and rejection,
instead of learning a social skill that could last them a lifetime.
Now, hat if we make this intent up
positively? What if we did it differently? What if we just assumed that instead of you being a mean idiot
that you just wanted the ball, so you hit the kid to get the ball.
And we go "Oh, you wanted the ball,
say 'May I have a turn.'" Instead of looking at the child as disrespectful and disrupting the
whole school
maybe the child wanted to answer the question but
forgot to raise his hand. What if we just assumed,
just made it up, that the intent was positive.
Three things happen. One
we define the core of the child as good
and his behavior just needs a little tweaking.
Second, we help lift the child from the
lower centers of the brain because that heart intelligence
and the brain are lifting. Yes you're safe.
Yes you're loved. Lift it up. Let's go on up to the higher centers of the brain.
So we pull children up to the higher centers of the brain so now they're saying,
"Well, is there a different way? What can I learn?"
So the third thing is the child learns,
is teachable. We created a cooperative teaching moment
where the child is ready and willing to learn a new social emotional
skill that they will use for the rest of their life.
So, negative intent sounds like this
"What should you be doing?" "What is our rule about this?"
"You know better than that, I'm gonna put your name on the board."
"You go over to timeout, you go to the office, you leave this room."
Now, positive intent starts with "You want it." You wanted
her to move. Say "May I have a turn." You wanted that spot.
Pushing.
You wanted the spot she was sitting in.
Pushing hurt. You may not push. When you want that spot say,
"Scoot over, please, I'd like to sit here."
So it's a different way of viewing something,
a different way of approaching it, and a different way of seeing it.
Now if you'd like more, I've got them right here. If you want to learn more about the skill
and practice it. If you want to learn more about the skill of
positive intent and practice it and you're a teacher
you need to go to chapter five of this book,
and read yourself silly. Now, if you're a parent
you're going to go get this book, and I can't remember what chapter it was but just
read the whole thing. It wouldn't hurt you. Alright, so you'll get these two resources to help you.
Now let me share you a couple stories about this.
Once we start offering positive intent
You want it. You wanted her to move.
You wanted that spot. You wanted my attention, don't yank on my coat.
When you want my attention stand here and I'll see you
I'll touch you to let you know l see you. Once we learn this skill and start offering it to kids,
guess what. They start using it in their lives.
So just a few stories. So I had this five-year-old child
and he just had a new baby,
and the baby's like eight months old.
The baby starts screaming and screaming,
and he walks over to the baby and goes,
"Do you want mommy? Just say, 'mommy,
come here.'" Now of course the child couldn't talk, but you can see he gave it his best
shot. Another child was four and he had a
younger sister who was, like two.
She comes up just and was just nagging him, and nagging him, and nagging him.
She kept grabbing the toy he had. Instead of smacking
his young sister upside the head, he turns to
her and says "You wanna play too,
here's your toy and here's mine." Of course, she's two, she took the toy and started playing.
Another example, a nine year old, couple of nine year olds were outside.
I heard this on the street myself. They're nine years old, and they're like "You wouldn't believe what she did at school.
She does this," or "She does that,
And she won't do this." And the other one says, "Maybe she wants
just to have a friend and doesn't know how," and she says,
"How about we ask her to sit with us at lunch tomorrow?"
Phenomenal stories. What we offer to kids, they're going to use
and teach to the next children, and teach to the next children.
And pretty soon positive intent has taken over
and were able to teach social skills that children need
It's the best skill, the only skill that will
change the lives of bullies.
Because you cannot change a
a child's behavior unless you see
the child differently first. Now,
everyone's experienced this because you've all been in adult relationships, and you've probably had more than
one. So, you're in adult relationships and
you're constantly nagging this person "Why don't you do this?
Why don't you do this?" or "Why do you have to wear those shorts.
Those shorts are the ugliest shorts I've ever seen. I can't believe what you have on today." And then
you break up, and you see this person walking down the street,
dressed to Ts. They look phenomenal and you're like,
"Why couldn't you do that with me?"
Well because you held this image of them. You kept seeing them as a sloppy dresser
and never could measure up. Everything they put on,
"Nah, nah, nah. Nah, nah, nah." But they got involved with someone else
and guess what. They didn't see the sloppy dresser in them. It's called the self fulfilling prophecy.
So the same thing happens with children.
They will never be able to change behavior until we see them differently. Mean children can't change behavior.
Only a child who's hurting, who needs help.
So Conscious Discipline makes it simple for us. Instead of trying to figure out what a child's intent is,
which we can't do, we're making it up
anyway, it makes it simple. We're just going to assume the child's behavior
all misbehavior is a call for help. So if we just make
that blanket assumption. They're calling for help. We show up.
We offer positive intent. We lift them to the higher centers of their brain.
We bring ourselves to the higher centers of our brain.
We teach them a new skill and life moves forward. So,
I want to share this final story and this is
on your screen you can see it's from The Times
in a small city and the article says. "Altercation over
bar seat ends in shooting."
You can't read this story but I'll sum it up for you.
Now what happened. Two women, in a bar, and they're fighting over a stool.
One girl gets up and goes into the restaurant. The other girl slides over and sits on her stool.
She comes back out of the restaurant and she's just
outraged. "Ya-da da-da-da!" But then she kind of lets it go.
Now the second girl, the girl on the stool, gets up and goes into the restaurant.
The other one slips backup, gets back on the bar stool. So they're having a power struggle over
who's going to sit on this one bar stool. Well the second girl, coming out of the
restroom, she didn't get into a verbal argument. She pulls out a gun and shoots her.
Goes through her arm. Completely through the one arm,
and hits another bystander out there. The moral of the story is
that negative intent lead to
violence. And negative intent always
leads to violence. What of we took
our simple process and applied it to the bar stool situation. It would sound something like this
"You wanted the bar seat, so you pulled out a
gun. You didn't know what to do. You may not
shoot. Shooting is hurtful and dangerous.
When you want the bar stool say 'May I have this stool please?
It's very important to me,' and then they will say yes or no,
you can manage that also, by taking a deep breath,
saying to yourself, 'I'm safe,
keep breathing Becky. I can handle this.
I'll sit over there.'" That sounds ridiculous and
sounds simple, but to me it sounds
easy if we have children grow
up, thinking all they have to do is offer positive
intent to one another. In this case we would build
a world where we're all
in a teachable moment instead of
moments where we're all after each others throats.
All children are going to be asking
am I safe, am I loved, and what can I learn.
Positive intent brings
us to the higher centers of our brains, and brings
children to the higher centers of their brain, allowing us
to coach and mentor them. Now, some people don't like
positive intent because they say, "Oh, you're coddling to kids you're going to let them
get away with ***. You're going to be so permissive.
You want to Na-na na-na-na." They say, "No.
we've got to smack them upside the head, or hurt them in some way."
But let me ask you this question. Have any of you ever had
a mentor in your life. Someone that
really has stretched you, that helped you grow,
that coached you to be better than you are today,
that saw something in you. Something
spark inside you, that you probably couldn't even see yourself. And they saw it
even when you were the worst you possible. They kept seeing that spark in you. Did they
allow you get away with ***? Were they too permissive?
Or did they help you become the best you,
you've ever been? We can to this
for children, with the power of love.
Until next time,
I wish you well.