Just a few days ago The Post Institute sent me a copy of The Great Behavior Breakdown. It covers quite a bit of the material from a seminar I took with Dr. Post a year or so ago - information that rings true to me.
Post starts the main portion of the book with a preface titled "On Life in the Trenches" where he describes a scene in his home where an older kid - nearly an adult - had come to live with he and his family. At one point, the stay became highly destructive. Post describes how he felt and the steps that he too. It is an apt beginning to a book, that is largely, about learning patience and understanding.
The introduction introduces the reader to some core concepts:
- You need to accept a paradigm shift in your parenting
- The Stress Model: all behaviours stem from stress. There are only two core emotions - love and fear.
- The Four Layers of Memory. Most of what we do is unconscious.
"When we encounter a novel event or stimuli, we perceive that event as a threat until deemed otherwise."1
- The difference between "discipline" and "punishment".
- The Fear Barrier.
- That we all have "Unfinished Business".
