Every New Year offers us a chance to take stock of our home and our efforts at building good habits in our children. In particular, it’s good to carefully determine if “false hope” lives in your home, as it will undermine happiness and success. False hope is just that: falsely hoping things will get better.

The problem is that false hope allows us to do NOTHING and still feel good about things. It’s an excuse for inaction when definitive action is needed. As the preeminent source of self-deception, false hope requires that we put our heads in the sand despite the oncoming tsunami.

In this article, I will introduce a simple system that destroys false hope by bringing more reality-based principles into your home.

Principles Behind The Simple Parenting System

Principle 1: Habits Shape Destinies, So We Must Take Habit-Building Seriously.

Over time, habits get stronger and exert more and more influence. Your child’s good and bad habits will likely stay with them and will point to their destiny. Bad habits are even worse due to their stickiness. They seem to stick to us like glue, and in today’s world of “instant gratification,” these bad habits are seemingly encouraged and accepted at times.

A part of you knows there is a problem stirring. Yet, false hope whispers, “Well, everyone is doing it, so it must be okay.” Or perhaps, “They will grow out of it.”

No…not predictably. These are bad habits that are not likely to change on their own. It’s time to take this seriously and focus on where we can change our parental game plan. Listen to that voice of wisdom: If it looks like a bad habit now, it will look worse in five years.

Principle 2: Abandon Using Better Words. Instead, Lead With Better Action.

If you see the need for fundamental change to build these better habits, do not pretend you will accomplish this with better words or logic. It won’t happen that way. I would be out of business if words worked to get children into healthy habits!

What we need is better action – not better words. We can’t teach respect by modeling disrespect to others. We can’t teach responsibility with no game plan for responsibility. We can’t build healthy eaters catering to picky eating habits. We can’t spend our free time staring at the phone unless we expect our children to do the same. In each example, we must look to better action.

Principle 3: Success Leaves Clues.

We do not have to reinvent the wheel when we seek better action. Many successful models are out there, and certain core principles remain consistent. It’s easy to find those healthy role models.

However, we often don’t need anyone to show us better behavior or tell us what actions represent a higher principle. We need to do THAT which we know to be better! The tendency is to want to do it “our way” —rather than simply seeking to study and model ourselves in the footsteps of success.

Principle 4: We Learn From The Consequences Of Our Choices.

In a world of false hope, kids make poor choices, and there is no consequence. We even go out of our way to protect children from the consequences of their poor decisions. It is not the child’s problem that they cannot learn to be better if we parent in this way. The consequence often is the TEACHER. Without that consequence, children cannot learn from their choices.

We simply are wired to learn from the consequences of our choices. If we somehow try to “out-smart” life by protecting our kids from their poor choices, we “dis-able” them from the very mechanism life has provided for learning.

Thus, we must honor this understanding to get on track with the simple parenting system. Starting today, we stop protecting our children from their poor choices and honor the authentic teachers of life’s lessons: choice and consequences.

Principle 5: Work, Then Play—But Only Every Single Day.

To build the habit of responsibility, we cannot lecture this into our children. We must nurture it into their very neurology through daily practice. The most powerful way to do this is by requiring responsible action EVERY DAY before getting to play. You do this not by lecture but by withholding the “Play” until the “Work” is done.

This “Work, Then Play” approach has been proven to build healthy habits. It honors teaching your children about reality, gets you into action mode, and requires you never to endorse false hope. You do not hope their room is picked up before going out to play; you inspect it regardless of what they claim. You don’t even necessarily believe them when they say the homework is done; instead, you review it. If it’s done, they get the iPad, the phone, or other goodies. If not, no goodies. It’s that simple.

Principle 6: Talk is Cheap.

Remember to avoid the talk, the reminders, the lectures, and all those endless pointers. Let the leverage work here by keeping Principle Five alive in your home. It’s your secret weapon to both get results and build independence.

This brings you and your home into a reality-based system, where you establish this daily habit as the foundation behind all your decisions. If you stick with the plan, you will see responsible habits explode in the weeks ahead.

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