Child Training 101 - The Terrible Two's

Transcription

[intro music]

Michael Pearl:  What happens is when they come into the world, they're Mama's little sweetheart. But they grow up and they're not so cute anymore. "The Terrible Two's," somebody said. "It's the Terrible Two's that they're going through. It's just a stage that they're going through. It's their personality type." "No, they're strong‑willed," somebody says. "My child is just a strong‑willed child."

I heard so many parents excuse behavior saying they're just strong‑willed. I say no, they're not strong‑willed, they're just not meeting enough resistance. They have a weak‑willed mother. That's the problem.

[laughter]

Now, somebody says, "It's hyperactive. My child is just a hyperactive kid." I love hyperactive boys. I have a big pile of firewood that needs to be split.

[laughter]

I have a garden that needs to be hoed. Send me your hyperactive kid and I will send you a sack of tomatoes.

[laughter]

No, here's the real disease. It's HHGMADDNOSD. That's short for Hyper Hateful Give Me Attention Discipline Deficit No Order Sin Dumb. You see, in our psychology, sociology world there is the belief that if you just take a habit, an action, a character trait and give it some kind of name then it is thereby a disease, inherited quality for which the person is not responsible and therefore needs to be treated with drugs or be ignored. But no one comes into the world with character flaws. Character flaws are not personality traits.

Someone might be aggressive or somewhat shy and it be an inherited trait. Someone else might be agitated and active and running all over the house and that can be inherited. When a kid is angry, that's a character flaw and they weren't born with it. When a kid is bitter or lazy, that is not a state of birth. That's a condition of heart.

[music outro]