Improve Your Parent-Child Relationship with Nurtured Heart Parenting

Over the years I have helped many parents work on improving their relationship with their children. My approach has always been to build positive connections while reducing negative interactions. Recently, I became certified in Howard Glasser’s Nurtured Heart Approach to parenting. This approach resonated with not only my instinct about parenting but also with the latest research on the importance of integrating mindfulness practices into daily living. I was drawn to become certified when I listened to a podcast on “Therapist Uncensored” in which Elizabeth Sylvester, Ph.D., a psychologist in Austin, described how the approach works with the most emotionally intense and oppositional children in her practice. In this podcast, Dr. Sylvester described how she has helped parents of highly difficult, emotionally intense children move from daily conflicts with their parents to positively attuned interactions.

The Nurtured Heart Approach

The Nurtured Heart Approach is not simply about changing a child’s behaviors, it is more about changing the ways that parents relate to their children. In addition, if parents adopt the full philosophy of this approach, they will also relate to themselves and everyone around them from a more accepting and mindful place. This, I believe, is why this approach makes such radical changes for even the most difficult children. The parent, ultimately, commits to significant internal change which shifts how they see their child. This shift in perspective naturally shifts the parents’ ways of relating to their child which results in a child who sees themselves in a more positive light. The outcome is a child who behaves more positively because they are intrinsically motivated to make better decisions.

When I explain this approach to the parents in my practice, I explain that this approach is a much deeper, more profound version of “Catch Them Being Good”. It requires a parent to see all the positive behaviors that their child already does daily and recognize it regularly and with great emotional intensity. Conversely, the approach requires parents to de-energize any emotion they give to their child’s negative behaviors. I warn the parents that this process may sound easy, but it can be very challenging since we as humans are biologically programmed to respond to negativity with intense emotion. The Nurtured Heart Approach requires parents to become highly attuned to their own nervous system and balance the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches so that they can engage with their child according to what that child needs.

The Three Stands

To counteract one’s own biological predisposition, Howard Glasser developed several tools. The tools are more techniques applied with intention. The Nurtured Heart Approach integrates mindfulness by requiring parents to first “reset” themselves before engaging with their child’s difficult behaviors. To do this, Glasser created “The Three Stands”. Here’s a chart for ease of understanding:

As you can see these “stands” are more for the parent than for the child. There is nothing that you as the parent must say to your child to show you are in a particular stand. Instead, it is your internal state that must shift to be committed to each stand. The three stands are also fluid. You will move between each of these at different points during each day with your child. To be able to effectively implement each of these stands, NHA teaches parents to give themselves and their children an internal “reset”. The “reset” is a moment to center oneself, to stop negative behaviors and to shift the energy from negative to positive. I love this idea because we parents need to reset ourselves many times a day before we can effectively discipline our kids. Our natural, biological response to our child’s negative behaviors is to be upset, hurt, angry and to react with our own intense negativity. How can we expect our children to shift their negative energy to positive if we cannot ourselves?  That is the beauty of the reset.

In a nutshell, NHA asks parents to react to a child’s misbehaviors with an un-energized “reset” as a consequence. This is a moment in which the parent might say: “Jane, reset” and turn his or her back to the child. Next, the parent watches carefully for the second the child behaves, shows a decrease in unwanted behaviors, or stops altogether. When this happens, the parent uses Stand Two and might say: “Thanks for resetting. I see that you stopped whining. This shows me that you are listening!”

The Nurtured Heart Approach may seem overly positive at first. Many parents feel that they are being disingenuous at first. They might find their compliments feel empty. I encourage parents to reflect on all the many moments in which their child truly is behaving, acknowledge those and fill up the bucket of their child’s sense of self. What’s true about the NHA is that it is based on the absolute truth of the moment. It is a mindful approach that does not get caught up in anger about the past or fears about the future. In the moment, a parent must acknowledge that either a rule is being broken, or it isn’t. If a rule isn’t being broken, actively offer energized, positive acknowledgement and appreciation. If a rule is being broken, it’s time for a reset and a new chance for success. I have found that my integrated model of parent coaching thrives with the philosophy of The Nurtured Heart Approach. Afterall, we as parents want to have more positive interactions with our children. For those of us who have exceptionally difficult or intense children, NHA gives us the opportunity to develop a deep commitment to seeing and acknowledging all of the greatness we see in ourselves and our children. For more in-depth information on The Nurtured Heart Approach, visit https://nurturedheartinstitute.com.