EverEvolving

Ever
Evolving
Morris Barnes
Family Graffiti
£3
Inside every behaviour is a child struggling to behave

"I was born thinking
what is it that you want me to
learn?"
First edition published in 2018
copyright @ 2017 Family Graffiti Limited

Introduction
Your Revolution
To change a behaviour we must first understand its meaning. Poor behaviour in
childhood is usually an undeveloped understanding of expectation.
What children think, how they feel and what they believe is their goal, this is
what they practice. Sometimes learnt from others, by miss-interpretation, or
maybe handicap, but rarely ever by calculated choice.
No child is born bad, it is nurture that creates all behaviour. No child is
intentionally naughty and No amount of punishment will alter behaviour, better
learning will...
Our theory
Inside every behaviour is a Child struggling to behave. No blaming or shaming,
just simple understanding.
"I was born thinking so what is it that you want me to learn?"
Cognitive Reasoning is how thinking and feelings work together in an everevolving
mind and that can be reframed with love. Children are instinctive
learners and have a natural drive to achieve the 'best' place that they can to
satisfy their needs. Poor behaviour reflects a confused mind state, so we need to
replace confusion with clarity and then let the Child learn how best to 'do it' for
themselves.
Ever evolving
It is time to evolve our understanding of best parenting! Our Children's world is
ever evolving and our knowledge of behaviour has moved on. Science has
proven that some Child experts should have a 'best before date'!!!
Understand how your Child's reasoning works and how to avoid the pitfalls. Don't
rely on 'past' generations of belief and choose to make some time in your busy
lives to evolve your understanding of parenting for your Child, It will be worth
the investment.

1. Mindset and motivation
We all know that children have an ability the see things and events around them
from a ‘new’ mindset. This often shows surprising maturity and simple clarity.
Their thinking may not be to the preferred ‘norm’ that you expect. They much
prefer an orderly, constructive and even perhaps a challenging environment in
which to thrive. This is how they retain a calm security to form their own basic
theories of life expectancies and achievement. The Adult, however, often reacts
with real anger or frustration and ‘punishment’ is at the forefront.
Any child’s mindset should be supported by a calm and loving attachment. They
need a simplistic factual communication style and a routine systemic timetable. In
doing this, parents are giving their children the best opportunity to create a
naturally advancing mindset for themselves. We embolden them to become selfmotivated
learners who know how to achieve their immediate needs. They will
learn how to problem solve and how to deal with setbacks without disillusion.
Calm and Considerate, Patience and Persistence. The Child will learn this same
mindset.
"calm voices
calm choices
calm children"

2. The worst?
Why do adults always assume the worst?
Why do we Adults always assume the most ‘drastic’ of intent and illogical
reasoning from a child in a tantrum? For the child, often the simplest of
occurrence can trigger anxiety, frustration, fear and reaction. They have not
been taught how better to react cognitively, so they display “Upset”.
They are confused, fearful and don’t know how better to let you know “I am not
happy with this situation”.
Kids are self-centred by nature and they will have only their thought of “how can
I get something that I want?” Which to the Child, usually means “how can I
control this horrible feeling that is attached to this event?” or “How can I let the
Adult know that I am not happy?”.....
.....I know, I’ll scream.
Of the child’s tantrum display and your own pre-reaction ask yourself, What is
the Child really trying to achieve? What should I be trying to achieve in this
situation? What is it that the Child wants to communicate and how should I be
responding?”
Think: If I were in the Child’s situation, what is it that I would most like the Adult
to give me?
“Work hard to find the diamonds on the beach.
The beach is covered with billions and billions of
tons of sand.
Each grain glitters and gleams in the sun.
The tide floods in and dulls the lay.
How many, I wonder, did we miss today?”
Search for the asset strengths that lie inside your child,
not the behaviour that troubles them.

3. Positivity
We all have the ability to achieve!
Do not scold the Child for poor displays, simply show them a better way to
achieve.
The real answer to the Child’s difficulty is likely to be quite mundane and easily
achievable.
Create a communication pathway that provides an opportunity for resolve, not
punishment.
Create a pathway for the Child’s ability to grow, do not expect this to be an
“inherited” skill, it can be taught. Do not limit the child with your own mindset, or
typical ‘norm’ reactions.
The Child is an instinctive learner, as are most adults. Learn to recognise “new”
ways, outside of the ’norm’. The Child is trying to lead the way for you to be more
creative and more positive.
... Ever Evolving

4. Cognition
I was born thinking and with feelings, so what is it that you want me to learn?
We know that all newborns have the ability to remember. We also know that they
will record information and store it, for later recall. This is called the Cognitive
process.
Children have feelings and these develop maturity in their very early childhood
stages. They recognise ‘good’ and ‘bad’ sensations.
When a child has mastered the task of allying their memories with their feelings,
they can make judgements on how they feel in any ‘happening’ situation. This is
called Cognitive Reasoning.
Kids don't have to understand why the act and the feeling go together. They just
associate them by their experience. It isn’t a decision-making process, they don't
know what makes a different action more appealing.
It takes more development and experience for the Child (3 plus years) to make
reasoned choices, using this Cognitive Reasoning to decide what action to take.
Before that, their cognitive reasoning is only an instinctive memory reaction
based on recognized feelings. Now they can start to distinguish which
memory/feelings combination that they can depend on to achieve a certain result
The Cognitive Process:
1. Receive information (messages recorded)
2. Retain information (messages remembered)
... Ever Evolving
3. Recall information (messages associated with an event or action)
4. React to this information (how the message and
allied feelings present in behaviour).

5. Fear
There is no greater deterrent to learning than the fear of making a mistake.
Take away the fear, don’t scold the child or punish them every time they make an
effort and fail to achieve. It is the “effort to try” that is the most important part of
learning and develops resolve, rather than any actual achievement.
If we unintentionally cause the Child to fear trying, because failure always leads
to their punishment or humiliation, they will fear trying and avoid new efforts to
improve. But, if we encourage their effort and explain the missed outcome, they
will make the effort again.
It is by making mistakes that we learn most. So let them make a mistake, then
encourage them to look for a different decision route, let them discover the
enjoyment of searching for and discovering an alternative route, hopefully with
new outcomes.
“Schooling” is now so conditioned to ‘achievement’. Whether it be SATS or school
reviews. Systemic, government focused credit (and the fear of failing), drives our
teachers and our schools to focus on inept and outmoded teaching practices, it’s
all about the result for them.
Parenting should not fall into this category. It should be about “what and how”
can this child best learn? Parents have the power to change how their child learns
best. They can change their child’s world by working with and advocating for the
Child’s best asset development opportunity: their Cognitive Reasoning ability.
Science has proved it, let them do the learning.
... Ever Evolving

6. Boundaries
Setting boundary expectations
We know that children thrive best when learning within secure and sound
boundary expectations. They enjoy the freedom to explore and the risk of
adventure, within these safe boundary expectations.
Children will challenge these boundaries from time to time. This is not behaviour
made by a calculated choice to be naughty, it is most likely the child’s naive
attempt to develop an understanding of the limits and the flexibility of these
boundary expectations.
It is perhaps the child’s curiosity.
They are seeking to learn just how far they can go. When you are setting
boundaries be sure of what you want them to learn and when they ‘stretch’ the
space that they operate within you must know beforehand how much tolerance
you will allow. Because they will ‘push it’.
Parents need to set ‘outer limits’ of their expectations, and ‘inner limits’ for the
child to push against. The ‘limit’ allowance being the bit that will not annoy you too
much if they do test you, without compromising their other good efforts.
For example, bedtime rule: 8.45 upstairs, clean teeth, PJ’s on for in bed with eyes
closed for 9 pm, cos morning comes round quicker that way. What if at 8.45, they
say goodnight and go to their routine without prompting but are not in bed and
quiet until 9.10? Is this a ‘failure to achieve’ or 'rewarded as good effort?'
The same expectancy boundaries should apply to all behaviours, where the child
can make an effort (and perhaps fail) of their cognition. Do not be so restrictive in
your expectations that you strangle the ‘effort input’. This is the part that is key to
their learning.
... Ever Evolving

7. Limiters
Apart from Safety issues, the only other limiters on a child’s learning, are
the ‘Teachers’.
Teachers include Parents, peers, wider families and friends, teaching
professionals, care workers, societies ‘do-gooders’, even TV, webby stuff, books.
We are all teachers. Anyone who the Child can mimic or learn from.
Of course, there is no such thing as ‘the Perfect Parent', ‘a perfect child’ or ‘a
perfect world’. We none of us are ‘perfect’ and society is certainly not. Even
Morris and Nik have their explosive tantrums and over ‘exuberant to depressive’
mood swings (especially Morris). But WE CAN TRY! It is the opportunity to try, the
effort to try, the limitless opportunities to try, the willingness to try, to fail and to
try again, to try to improve our understanding, to try to help others.
There should be no limiters that interfere with our natural intrinsic willingness to
learn.
Children work well within invisible boundary tolerances, rather than rigid limits.
They instinctively come to know what is expected and what is not tolerated.
Instead of ‘boundary setting’, try communication. Try not to set “what not to do
boundaries” (these are restrictive). Try to instil an appreciation of where the child
can venture unchallenged, and encourage them to take that route.
Let them be creative and searching. If they learn something inappropriate (to
societies ‘norm’), then explain a better choice that could be made in the future.
Don't say ‘No’ to their first learning. They do have an intrinsic ability to seek the
better place for them to achieve their own goals, and NO will be seen as a
challenge worth looking at to them. Let them choose the new route, they will soon
accept it as their own learning.
... Ever Evolving

8. Scheduling
Scheduling to give your child peace of mind.
We know that children respond better to regular scheduling and timetables. To
varying degrees, it is their comfort zone of expected conformity.
Each to their own degree, children love orderly, Factual, Evidenced, Regular
conformity and Participative Routine. This could be their normal day eating &
sleeping schedules, or simple play times. No matter the communication and
learning styles, kids love conformity. It can all seem pretty mundane to an adult,
but to a child, it is cherished.
Most Children love ‘pigeon-holing’ their own facts, they almost have a
constitutional need for fact and factual. In early years in particular (0-7years)
they are unable to take things on faith. Just because you would like them to
believe something, doesn’t mean they will. Kids need to see it, be part of it and it
needs to be actual. Making imaginative promised rewards for the future is rather
futile.
Immediate recognition and praise for an act just being committed is far more
influential. It is here, now, in the present. They can ally this praise with an action
or effort that they are making, in the present. It all hangs together for them and it
makes sense (and 'cognitively' this will be their recall data).
So, if a Child’s 'asset strength needs' are to have facts tidily packaged and
presented in their daily activity. Use this ‘natural need’, to their and your
advantage.
... Ever Evolving

9. Conformity
Regulate bedtimes & wake up times, meal times & learning times, attending times
& free Play times, School times & Rest times. etc. etc. This helps teach selfregulation.
Children will anticipate the end of a particular activity period, and
prepare for the next (handy for when it comes to them self-regulating IPad
games/TV times).
Make weekends and school holidays keep as close a possible to the same routine
as every other day. Build in regular 'me only' times. This respite from each other is
very important for both of you.
Do not be pedantic with your timekeeping, but be as consistent as practical (and
don’t miss a ‘story reading time’). Kids will embrace the conformity, it will add a
security of order to their lives. They will find it rewarding & they will stick to it
better than you will!
Do not insist that your child ‘acts like anyone else’. They won’t. Kids need their
own existence to suit their own unique needs and their own particular routine.
Having a regular timetable also encourages self-regulation. It shows that there
are certain periods of time allocated to each activity, and then, you finish and
move onto the next (planting the seeds). If we parents have to become a little
more 'discipline' in our own routine, then so be it… It isn’t a crime! It can be a
blessing. Because this is how the Child is naturally conditioned to think, in their
early years (0-7years), it will satisfy their basic need for separated attention and
learning times. They will develop their own basic satisfaction, they will find this
rewarding. Children will respond to it.
Kids will add their own creativity and challenges inside this timetabling. Less fear
of the unknown and less frustrated by learning that is out of their immediate
reach. They will be less reliant upon adult company and much more able to make
sense of their own immediate world because ... Ever it keeps Evolving
repeating (habit forming,
each to their own degree)...

10. Born a learner
Always a learner.
Does perfect, understanding parenting always equal perfect children?
Learning doesn’t always mean mimicked or copied. Sometimes a child’s mind
works; two plus two equals five, or seven, or something really random.
Parents will always be in the dark when it comes to understanding a child’s logic
of behaviour. It’s confusing for kids and confusing to us. This is the first thing we
have to understand: Perfect Parents cannot fully understand their Child. We can
only get a good sketch of what they are trying to achieve and why they are
expressing themselves in this meltdown way!
“Work hard to find the diamonds on the beach.
The beach is covered with billions and billions
of tons of sand.
Each grain glitters and gleams in the sun.
The tide floods in and dulls the lay.
How many, I wonder, did we miss today?”

11. Metacognition
Metacognition is a big word for something that we all do every day, without even
thinking about it. “Thinking about our thinking” (metacognition) is what creates
our perspective on things. (Family Graffiti call this: Cognitive Reasoning). It is how
we use our insight, our reflecting and our thinking to gain an understanding of
our feelings, needs and behaviours.
In early years (0-3years): A child’s mind is essentially a recording device. It
captures everything. Early years needs are simple; to be fed, to be warm, to feel
safe, to be loved, to sleep etc. And record everything that happens around them.
In developing years (3-7years): A child’s mind starts to learn, manage and adapt
their recordings and ally their recorded thoughts with feelings and sensations.
They adapt to new learning and have a better understanding of experiences,
challenges and setbacks (upsets). Their needs become more demanding and more
urgent. They are having a running, confusing conversation in their heads. Still
recording, starting to reason (but which reaction is the right one?), starting to
have developed needs, still self-centred in their wants and becoming bigger,
stronger, louder. The thought patterns that the Child develops during this period,
can set their mindset for years to come. It will set their future behaviour and
learning capabilities.
So now, (3-7years): Is when we parents need to be pro-active in our teaching.
The Child’s mind may be confused but it is still very malleable, it can be reframed,
it can be helped to recognize the ‘better’ strategies, and made to
understand how to achieve their ‘wants and needs’ without a tantrum. Once
Parents have planted the ‘learning seed’, it will continue to flourish, if it is
encouraged too!
Planting the (metacognitive) learning seed, will enable the Child to develop a
natural mindset which is still growing, still learning, still striving for goals. But they
need a gentle ongoing process of positive conditioning to keep their cognitive
reasoning on track. Better cognitive training at this age (3-7years), develops
better learning strategies, less anxiety, less frustration, better self-esteem, better
self-regulation, improved belief and effort to achieve, better behaviour, all
around the mechanics for building a brighter future.

12. Metacognition training
All Family Graffiti strategies include an element of metacognition. Asking
the Child “to use what they have – a ready functioning learning system”.
Enable the child to think about the triggers that caused an incident. Let them
explain to you what it was they were trying to achieve? Don’t Blame, or Shame,
simply encourage them to tell you their story and try to understand it. This will
encourage them to reflect (think back), using their own thinking process.
Take away the element of fear from the acting out behaviour and from the
storytelling. You need to encourage a solution-focused thinking process, not one
of punishment and reprisal.
Then encourage them to think about what they would want you (the parent) to do
to help them achieve their intended goal. And if their response is appropriate, do
it. Show them that their calm, talking process, works to achieve goals, better than
their acting out behaviours.
Ask them, “Would you remember how to handle things differently next time?”
(Ensuring that the learning seed is firmly planted).
Tell the Child “it’s your better-thinking process that gives you good outcomes”.
(Use your own age-appropriate words).
Tell them “that next time you can feel a tantrum coming on, ask me for the answer
first. Then we can work it out together”, (when they do approach you, set time
aside for them immediately and let them do the talking and thinking, you just use
guiding comments). Remember a good teacher shows where to look, not what to
find.
Be Patient. There is no instant miracle… This is a whole new learning process
you are trying to instil, it will take time and there may be setbacks. Be
persistent and consistent and always, always patient.
Morris
xx

About the author
Morris Barnes and his son Nick Barnes launched their online business Family
Graffiti in late 2015.
With a mixture of wisdom, experience and enthusiasm, Family Graffiti was
created to provide parents with psychological guidance and support in the
comfort of their own home. Family Graffiti has also been set up to help fund a
retreat in France designed to offer respite care… a holiday for parents and a
therapeutic experience for children.
Morris
&
Nick
Family Graffiti is completely different to
any child therapy advice website you
will have been on, and that’s exactly
how they want it to be.
Morris' parenting techniques are based
on years of qualified experience in social
care, psychology, childcare lecturing,
parenting and therapeutic foster care.
Watching, listening, assessing and
caring.
Family Graffiti is built on the principle that children’s minds have instinctive
learning processors and that good cognition feeds their need for knowledge and
mental growth. Good cognition can be created in healthy minds, inspiring an
amazing happy child.
They believe that It is parenting that influences development the most and that
creates the person that the child will become. Learning is most influential when
made during early years, but early failings can be repaired at any stage of
developing life providing the recipient is prepared to seek change.
www.familygraffiti.co.uk
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copyright @ 2017 Family Graffiti Limited