Getting Back 2 Greatness - The Nurtured Heart Approach

Do you have children in your life who:

appear angry or defiant?

exhibit temper tantrums?

do not respond to traditional discipline techniques?

Do you, as a parent:

find yourself yelling all the time?

feel like you’re not having any fun with your kids?

feel stressed out or anxious?

There is an approach that can help.

The Nurtured Heart Approach™ (NHA) created by Howard Glasser, is a method of parenting children with ADHD and others who are highly intense or difficult, by transforming the focus of their intensity and energy from one of ongoing opposition, negativity and failure, into one of success and achievement. It’s about recognizing and reflecting successes in every moment with your child. The good news is that this approach works with all children – whether they are impulsive, unmotivated, anxious, hyper, shy, entitled, etc. By using the methods outlined in the Nurtured Heart, all children flourish! 

Traditional parenting methods may work for the average child, but are not designed for the intense child and the harder parent’s try to implement these conventional methods, the worse the situation may get. Once the parent removes the computer, phone, TV and all other privileges, what options is the parent left with? The truth of the matter is that the child is running the show and isn’t afraid of his parents.

That’s why I created www.gettingback2greatness.com. I help families with spirited children by having the parents acknowledge and celebrate the child’s positive behaviors and reflect them back to the child, while giving no attention to the negative behaviors. Particularly intense kids who get all of our delicious, luscious attention when they are misbehaving and breaking rules so they rise to that expectation- why would they give that up?


We as parents, accidentally energize the choices we don’t want our children to make, by giving out $100 bills in the form of our attention, focus, and relationship. Energetically we hand out big bucks all the time. Children can feel relatively invisible when they are not breaking the rules and perceive the juicy connection when they do because the energy we give is often “upside down”. 

By realizing that we are the gift being sought by our children, we can now decide how to give them our attention, energy, and relationship. We can either focus on the negative - the whining, name calling, temper tantrums, back-talking, and all of the other undesirable behaviors, or we can change our focus and energize the children for all of the non-rule breaking behaviors that they do every day. 

Once the adult begins to celebrate the child’s positive behaviors, the parent creates a juicier, more spiritually nutritious “time-in”. As the child feels “nourished” by the parent, he will begin use his intensity in more successful ways.

Parents and teachers need to make a child feel valued. This is accomplished by recognizing the child’s positive choices and reflecting them back to the child in these moments to give the child a first-hand experience of success. Children don’t always know what they are doing right- they need our help.

This technique is a remarkable way of showing your child that you notice and care about many aspects of their life…It is not only a way of feeding their emotional reservoir, but of proving that they are not invisible. Indeed, many children feel they are invisible unless they are either going to the trouble of acting out or doing something exceptionally well.

By noticing the child for his everyday good choices, the child begins to feel valued and has a sense of belonging, not for something fabulous that they accomplished, but just for being who he is in each moment. 

Once you begin to implement this approach and the child feels “seen” – the parent will see the behaviors in their home shift and the child will show up in their greatness!

I am the owner of Getting Back 2 Greatness through which I provide one-on-one coaching, classes, trainings and speaking engagements on the NHA™. For more information- please contact me at Julie@gettingback2greatness.com, 702.461.0749 or visit my website at www.gettingback2greatness.com.

Julie has trained teachers, parents, religious schools, social workers, Foster Parents, Jr. League, Psychiatrists, spoken at Anti-Bullying Conventions, and taught a graduate class at UNLV on Parenting.

The approach, although originally designed for highly intense children, is tremendously valuable for all children. Whether your child shows symptoms of ODD, ADHD, is withdrawn, shy, aggressive, feels entitled, is unmotivated, etc., when you implement these strategies, you bring out the best in your child!

Transforming the Difficult Child: The Nurtured Heart Approach, by Howard Glasser has risen to number one in sales among ADHD books. Glasser's work has provided parents with a highly effective interactive alternative to medicating their challenging children, one that creates successes for them, and allows them to internalize those successes.

Also find Getting Back 2 Greatness on Facebook