# The Nurtured Heart Approach to Parenting



## David Baxter PhD (Jul 30, 2018)

*A Radically Positive Parenting Technique: The Nurtured Heart Approach*
by Sweta Gupta, _ADDitude_
July 30, 2018

Standard behavior modification approaches are designed to support  adults in guiding energetic children with attention deficit disorder (ADHD or ADD) toward choices that will maintain harmony in homes and classrooms.

 The Nurtured Heart Approach® (NHA), created by therapist Howard Glasser  in the late 1990s, is often considered “behavior modification.” But it  is really a revolutionary way of building positive adult-child  relationships.

 Instead of trying to modify behavior and exert control, NHA  transforms the child by altering the way his parents relate to him.  Eventually, it changes the way the child relates to himself and the  world.

 Testimonials are not difficult to find. Says one mother: “My husband  and I were desperate to find an approach that worked for our high-energy  six-year-old boy. No form of discipline made him listen to us or follow  rules. We tried the NHA, and it transformed my son into a well-behaved,  considerate boy who listens to his parents. I consider this a miracle.”

*A Brief History of NHA*
 In the early- to mid-1990s, Howard Glasser was working as a family  therapist in private practice in Tucson, Arizona. Many families came to  him seeking help managing their challenging children.  All his training and focus went toward trying to help these families,  but the tactics his training had taught him didn’t improve his clients’  situations.

 Disillusioned and frustrated, Glasser started to work on new ways of  working with these children, guided by his own history of being an  exquisitely difficult child himself. Through a process of intuition,  trial, and error, he created an approach that, for years, didn’t have a  name. Word traveled quickly as he seemed to “cure” young people with ADHD.  Interns trained in his methods at a family therapy center he opened in  Tucson and it became more effective than professionals in improving the  behaviors of challenging children.

 Eventually, Glasser started to formalize his methods, which enabled  him to teach it as a unified approach. And he came up with a name. He  wrote his first book with therapist Jennifer Easley, _Transforming the Difficult Child,_ which — more than a decade later — remains a top seller on Amazon.

 Since its inception, the NHA has been adopted by hundreds of  thousands of families, thousands of teachers and administrators, dozens  of schools, and dozens more school systems and child welfare systems.

 A multi-year University of Arizona research study  on this approach is nearly complete at this writing. It looks at  whether the NHA reduces children’s ADHD symptoms of impulsivity,  hyperactivity, and inattention, reduces parental stress, and increases a  sense of competency among parents of children with ADHD. Early results  are promising.

 Some of the most compelling evidence for the approach’s effectiveness  comes from parents: “Our son has always been intense, but as he  approached four he was starting to act out in increasingly difficult and  physical ways. Within 48 hours of [using NHA and] reinforcing his  positive behaviors and de-energizing his negative behaviors, he was a  different child. I fell in love with my son all over again.”

*NHA in a Nutshell*
 The overarching impetus of the NHA is that the intensity that goes  awry and that eventually becomes symptomatic and diagnosable is the  energy source that fuels a child’s greatness. Instead of having a child  run laps to burn off intensity or placing him in activities meant to  channel that life force, you can use specific ways of relating to the  child that transform that intensity into fuel for the child’s innate  greatness. From that place, the child is drawn to make good choices, use  wisdom and self-control, and to be compassionate and collaborative.

 The NHA sets up the transformation by creating a paradigm shift for  the adult. It carries the adult learner through a series of contentions,  intentions, and techniques to engineer this shift. The principles of  NHA are:

*Stand One: Refuse to Energize Negativity*
 Children learn at an early age that they get a lot more “juice” from  adults when things are going wrong. Naturally intense children will work  that dynamic to obtain the biggest possible dose of focused,  emotionally vivid connection from adults. Stand One begins to flip that  dynamic: simple refusal to connect in an energized way with the child  around challenging behaviors. It is crucial to establish this first  stand before the other two, but it becomes effective only when it is  used alongside the second Stand.

*Stand Two: Purposefully Energizing Success*
 This Stand is about finding and acknowledging positive and neutral behaviors  — any behaviors that don’t involve breaking rules. It flips the dynamic  of energy for negative behaviors into energy for positive and neutral  behaviors. As the child comes to expect to be rewarded with connection  and appreciation for not acting out, he shifts.

 Mastering this Stand entails a consistent appreciation and commitment  to remember to state appreciation in moments when a parent thought  nothing worth remarking on what was happening. What is appreciatively  expressed to the child is never BS. It comes from truth-based  recognition, based on what has been there all along.

*Stand Three: Clear Rules and Consequences *
 The third Stand is: Be clear about the rules of your household or  classroom, stating them in a “No…” format (“No hitting,” “No lying,” “No  teasing,” “No leaving a mess”). This brings a greater clarity than  so-called “positive rules”: “Keep your hands to yourself” or “Be kind”  or “Clean up after yourself.”

 Adults who have raised challenging children know that if the line  between rule followed and rule broken isn’t perfectly clear, the child  will test and push to figure out where the line is. You may end up with a  lot of rules, but that’s OK. It leaves more room for Stand Two  appreciations where the rules are not being broken: “Billy, I love that  you chose to not argue when the game with your brother didn’t go your  way. I saw you were upset and you handled those feelings so powerfully  and wisely by deciding not to fuss.”

 When a rule is broken, the NHA uses an un-energized “reset” as a  consequence. This is a form of time-out where the adult temporarily  disconnects from the child, giving zero reactivity to the rule-breaking  behavior and saying, “Billy, reset.”

 The adult watches carefully for the next moment when something is  going right or the rule-breaking is dwindling or stopping, and goes back  to Stand Two: “Thanks for resetting. I see that you aren’t pushing your  sister any more, and that shows me you are using your self-control and  thoughtfully expressing kindness.”

*A Truth-Based Approach*
 The NHA may seem overly positive at first. What’s true is that it is  based in absolute truth of the moment. 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.


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