Methods – Easy As Pie

Excellent moms stay calm, are patient, loving and don’t spank their children. Nor do they have time to implement outdated and emotionally damaging time-outs.

Easier said than done. But when you use the Easy As Pie Parenting Method, it is easy. You can quickly and easily change your children’s behavior.

Really.

Your children’s behavior will astound other parents when they see you with them. It’s almost as if you and your kids are speaking some private language, even though you’re using everyday words like “kind,” “cheerful,” “helpful” and “respectful.” Other parents see this and often say, “Why can’t my kids do that?”

They can, if you follow a process that’s so simple you can start implementing it within one hour.

Easy As Pie uses magnetic pie pieces to help you keep track of your children’s behavior choices. These pieces are also visual tools that allow your children to see how you want them to behave, but with a difference. That’s because they “own” their actions. They become motivated to choose actions that you like because they love you, and they want you to be happy. And when Mom is happy and relaxed, everyone has more fun. Think of it: more time to play with your children, rather than wasted time scolding them.

As a mother of four active children, I needed something easy to help me shape their behavior. I didn’t like punishing my child and neither did I have time to monitor four children with four different timeouts. Such conventional parenting techniques had left me feeling disconnected from my own children. So disconnected that I was starting to feel that I didn’t even like them.

But I took action steps to improve my life that ultimately changed my children – as well as me.

What My Process Does

Children are motivated by fun. I help mothers discover the activities and things that their children love (such as toys, desserts, bikes, story time), which are known as motivators. Then I show mothers how to use those motivators to help their children to make positive behavior choices.

Easy As Pie uses six magnetic pie pieces that fit together to make a circle (which we call a whole pie). Each piece has a virtue printed on it: Respectful, Responsible, Kind, Helpful, Cheerful or Honest. When a child exhibits a behavior you don’t want in your home (such as jumping on the sofa), you verbally label the behavior; “that was not respectful” and slide the Respectful piece out of the circle. During the time that the child’s pie is “Not Whole” and their motivators (electronic gadgets, toys, desserts, bikes, etc.) are not available.

For example, the child needs to practice a respectful behavior in order to get this piece back. Your child becomes highly motivated to do so but they usually don’t know what to do. It’s the parents and siblings job to give ideas of different ways to earn the piece back. As soon as your child completes the task to your satisfaction, you return the pie piece  and your child is “whole” again. Now, all of the fun things are available again. Children start learning that it’s far easier to keep their pies whole by choosing behaviors you want in your home, than by misbehaving and having to re-earn them all over again. It’s not a punishment system – it’s a reward system.

Easy As Pie is revolutionary because siblings and their parents share responsibility to help the pies become whole as quickly as possible. This creates teamwork and bonding between family members. Parents are no longer the big meanies yanking away toys with no opportunity to earn them back. Your child only has to practice positive behavior to earn the opportunity to do what they love to do. Meanwhile, you can stay calm while your children are in complete control of their behavior choices.

Their lives become predictable and consistent. And so does yours.