The Purpose of Behavioral Programming

Our dedication is to the whole child.  Our interest extends to the child’s family, neighborhood, school, and community.  Each child’s well-being is contingent on the well-being of the extended network surrounding and supporting their growth.

Our interest in the whole child includes their well-rounded and well-balanced development.  We must attend to each area of need and support carefully weighted, balanced, and multi-dimensional growth: music, art, sports, friendship, family, hobbies and interests, academic achievement, ethical and spiritual well-being.  No one area can be allowed to consume our attention at the expense of another area.  We must remain flexible and responsive to the child’s needs. We must nurture each child’s strengths and carefully attend to their weaknesses.

Elements of Character, Development, and a Healthy Lifestyle: 

• Honesty

• Creative Well-being

• Cooperation / Teamwork

• Physical Well-being

• Work

• Emotional Well-being

• Loyalty

• Intellectual Well-being

• Enthusiasm

• Ethical Well-being

• Determination

• Spiritual Well-being

• Curiosity / Inquisitiveness

• Community Well-being 

• Playfulness

• Filial Well-being

• Optimism

• Social Well-being

• Resourcefulness

• Caring & Compassion

Growth is a dynamic process; a process leading toward resilience, a process leading toward a healthy and productive adult participant in society.  

Leadership initiates the process.  

Leadership is the beacon toward which the children grow. Leadership is the example or model we provide.  What does our model look like?  How do we nurture a carefully weighted and balanced lifestyle in our own lives and in the lives of the children we serve? 

How do we nurture resilience?  How do we nurture a sense of community in which growth and resilience will flourish?

The purpose of programming is to create a sense of community that will nurture, protect, and celebrate the children. 

“I was seeing in a sacred manner the shape of all things in the Spirit and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being and I saw the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle wide as daylight and as starlight. And in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father and I saw that it was Holy.” 

~ Black Elk

Kenneth H. Little, MA 

603-726-1006

KenLittle-NH.org

© 2009 Kenneth H. Little. All rights reserved.  

Payment for Chores? No.

Never pay children for helping out at home.

Being a cooperative and productive member of the family, making a contribution to the whole, is an expected part of life.

Raising children according to a constructive value system is foundational to preparing children for a good, happy, healthy, successful life.

Values:

• Clean up after your self
• Pitch in
• Be cooperative
• Be helpful
• Be respectful of self, others, property.

All of these values are part of helping out at home.

If kids want more money, they can help themselves and the family by earning it outside the family.

Paying children to help out at home does not teach a valuable life lesson. Children come pre-wired to be good workers and you will teach them budgeting and purchasing skills as they are growing up.  The vast majority of young children want to help out at home; they want to load the dishwasher and washing machine, move laundry from washer to dryer, run the vacuum cleaner, etc. If they don't naturally want to help out, for whatever reason, it's your job to teach them gradually and progressively across time these important values. 

Too many parents shoo children away from helping while they are young.  This is counter-productive. Accept their help gladly and make it fun, even if it takes longer.  Think about it?  Is your priority to get the laundry done or to teach your children all of the skills and values they will need to have a good life? 

If you shoo your children away from helping when they are young, do not expect them to help willingly when they are teens.    

Kenneth H. Little, MA / 135 Lee Brook Road / Thornton, NH 03285 / 603-726-1006 / Achieve-ES.com / KenLittle-NH.com

 

Developing Character Strength (part 1)

Character strength is required in order to overcome the obstacles, challenges, and hardships of life.
 
No life goes unchallenged, is free from hurdles and hardship.  As parents, it is our purpose to endow our children with the skills, characteristics, and values they will need, not just to survive periods of intense difficulty, but to be ready and able to rise to the occasion.
 
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Many parents understand this.  However, some parents believe they must subject their children to hardship and drive them relentlessly as preparation. 

I disagree with this perspective on parenting.

Note: All of these blog posts are based on case compilations involving 100s of the children and families I've worked with over the years. 

A safe, secure attachment and a safe and loving home is the strongest foundation for success in life.

Parents do not prepare children for hardship by being harsh or cruel to them.  Parents prepare children for hardships by providing a safe, loving environment at home; by gently and intentionally instilling the necessary values and nurturing the character strengths that will be required to face the challenges of the outside world.

It's the challenges of life that provide children with the opportunities to hone character, values, and skills; not the hardships imposed at home.  

At the end of each day, we come home to a safe, loving environment in order to recover speedily from the challenges faced in the world and prepare to go back out again. 

Love nurtures successful children.  Cruelty only weakens and depletes.

 Kenneth H. Little, MA / 135 Lee Brook Road / Thornton, NH 03285 / 603-726-1006 / Achieve-ES.com

A Brief Note on Parent Advocacy

Square Peg, Meet Round Hole

Parent Advocacy

Often times it may seem as if the systems and institutions our children are required to navigate are set in place to conspire against them.


*****
 
Children will face many challenges as they grow and develop.   

There are times during which we will be required to advocate for system change on behalf of our children. The system may or may not respond in a constructive manner. Some elements may; others may not.

Regardless of how the system responds, these situations also provide us with a golden opportunity to coach our children on the character strengths, values, and skills needed to successfully navigate difficult situations and systems in life.

Very few systems are perfect, if any.  The vast majority of work places are mediocre, at best.   As reported in a Harvard Business Review article, a study by Life Meets Work found that 56% of American workers claim their boss is mildly or highly toxic. A study by the American Psychological Association found that 75% of Americans say their “boss is the most stressful part of their workday.”

This is what we are preparing our children for. 

I'm not advocating for non-advocacy.  Please do advocate for your children, on their behalf.  What I am suggesting is that advocacy, while important, is only one side of the coin.  The other side is skill development, value system development, and character strength development.  These are the assets children will need in order to be ready to enter the workforce.  

As parents, our job is neither to force our children to conform to the system nor to force the system to perfectly fit our children.  

While we can work to mold the system into something more comfortable and effective, our primary job is to help our children develop the character strengths, values, and skills they will need to navigate obstacles and overcome difficulty successfully throughout life.  

Kenneth H. Little, MA / 135 Lee Brook Road / Thornton, NH 03285 / 603-726-1006 / Achieve-ES.com