Hope you all are well. We have a Free giveaway that we talk about later in this blog. On Friday, October 15, we had our first TV appearance for You’re Amazing And I’ll Prove It! The show is called Let’s Live! with Thurman Greco and it is being aired on Woodstock, NY Cable this week. Thurman is a big advocate for local authors and is an author herself. She is always looking for someone to be on her show, so feel free to contact her at thurmangreco@gmail.com 

We had an hour long discussion about You’re Amazing And I’ll Prove It!, the classes that we teach, and how people are using the book all over the country to help loved ones find themselves. We had a lot of fun and hope we were able to help lots of people. If you’re looking for a tool to help a loved one see how amazing they are, go to Amazon and buy You’re Amazing as your gift to them.

 We also have a Free Giveaway running on www.youreamazingandillproveit.com You can win a Knowledge Is Freedom t-shirt that says “There Are No Throw-Away People” and an autographed copy of You’re Amazing. Enter now!

Now to share the wisdom of a 61 year old inventor named Neal (me).

Communication Is The Answer

When my son David was 4 years old, my wife and I were having a great deal of trouble getting him to behave. No matter what we did, we couldn’t get him to behave. I know many of you are probably saying why don’t you just spank him. Along with many other things we had tried, spanking was one of them. In fact, spanking was the reason we called for help in the first place. You see the last time we disciplined him before we called for help, we were trying to get him to behave so I spanked him on his little heinie and he acted up more. So, I spanked him a little harder. He acted up even more. I then tried spanking him again and his behavior just got worse. I finally looked at my wife and said, “This isn’t working! I can’t spank him any harder, I could physically hurt him. We need help!”  After all we had never been a parent to such a strong-willed child before, so we were willing to listen to anyone who had information on how to deal with the situation.

Because of this we asked for parenting help from one of the local pre-schools who specialized in dealing with hard to reach children.

I was surprised when I discovered the technique this school used. First a woman,  Jean, came into our home once a month. I thought this was to teach us how to deal with David. The first time Jean came into our home I thought it was a disaster.

David was acting up and Deb and I could not stop him. We were so embarrassed. Jean calmly looked at us and asked, “Is it ok if I deal with this situation?” We said, “YES!” She then put David in his room, which was right off of the room we were sitting in and told him to stay in his room. Jean returned to the room Deb and I were in. She sat down and started talking to us. David was screaming and throwing his toys out of his room into the room we were in. Jean ignored David’s behavior. Deb and I looked at her as if to say what the heck is going on here? Jean said, “for now don’t worry about the screaming and throwing things. I told him to stay in his room and that is what he is doing. So, this is a win. We will work on the other behaviors as we go forward. But, for now he is doing what I told him to do.”

David started going to Children’s Express Day Care and Jean continued to come into our home and counseled Deb and I. However, with the exception of the first time Jean came into our home, she never dealt with David at home. She would sit with Deb and I at our kitchen table and talked to us as a couple. We thought Jean was going to help us be better parents by teaching us how to deal with David. However, what she really was doing, when she was in our home, was to teach Deb and I how to communicate more effectively as a couple. As time went by, we communicated better with each other. This led to fewer and fewer clashes between Deb and I and at the same time it led to communicating with David more effectively. This led to fewer and fewer clashes with David. David is now 32 years old and is one of the kindest men I have ever known.

I have another blog that is entitled My Wife and I Had A Fight in which I talk about how important communication is. David’s story is another way of showing how important communication between all of us is. Next week I’ll tell you what Jean and Children’s Express did to help 4-year-old David see the importance of communicating and showing compassion to others.   

As always, I love hearing your stories and comments. If you want to follow my blog please click on the plus sign in the upper left-hand corner of this page. See you next week!