I HAD TO LEARN TO celebrate

Three Stands: According to the Children’s Success Foundation, the Core Methodology of NHA contains Three Stands

Stand One: Absolutely No!

I refuse to energize negative behavior.

Stand Two: Absolutely Yes!

I will relentlessly energize the positive.

Stand Three: Absolutely Clear!

I will maintain total clarity about rules that demonstrate fair and consistent boundaries.

Absolute No: Choosing not to give energy and time to negativity.

“Typically,” How said, “adults only compliment children when they are being good. Well, if you work with difficult children, good luck with that. When I started NHA, I could lecture for a long time on things my kids were doing poorly. We tend to converse in negativity. NHA teaches not to give your energy and your words to negativity and lecturing. I started watching my children’s faces. It’s pretty humbling to watch someone else’s face crumble when you are vomiting negativity. I saw that I was breaking their spirits, even though that wasn’t my intention. Learning how to use NHA has been a journey that started with me breaking my addiction to seeing and speaking negativity. It took a lot of self-reflection. I had to learn how to stop being so negative. That’s the first step. Don’t water the weeds.”

Absolute Yes: Relentlessly creating positivity and success with appreciation, recognition and acknowledgement.

NHA doesn’t wait in silence for a child to be good enough. Instead of making a mountain out of a mole hill, they take each small mole hill, each moment of good behavior, and see it is a miracle. “When a child is behaving well we typically say things like Good job, or Way to go. The problem is there is no real information here. Children don’t really see what it is that they are doing well. So we need to be specific. We need to give children some evidence of what we see. For example, I may say, ‘I see you are standing by me waiting for me to finishing talking to dad. You could be interrupting me. This shows me you have great self-control and thoughtfulness; you chose to wait patiently.’ By giving children specifics, we are encouraging them. They begin to see themselves in the light of what they can and are achieving.”

Howard Glasser said, “Whatever you celebrate, you get more of.”