We have a success rate of over 85 percent using this approach with children and teens who are referred primarily through the school systems. Within my own home, with our own intense children, this approach has been nothing less than a miracle. Tolson Elementary is a school of 450 students, 71 percent of whom are on free or reduced lunch. Five years ago, Tolson Elementary had the highest rate of suspensions in their district (8 percent of the total 336 in a district with more than 60 schools.) Their principal had a constant flow of kids coming to see her for discipline problems.
In 1997, Tolson Elementary school began using the Nurtured Heart Approach as its exclusive way of working with discipline problems. Following are the results of that action.
Although there has been a need for a couple of non-behavioral suspensions in the past year, aggression is reportedly only exhibited by new children who have not yet been immersed in the system for a time.
Mr. Glasser has found that “children (and teens) who systematically experience their ‘inner wealth’ will manifest success by wanting to be great students and by wanting to make great choices, despite the child (or teen’s) home situation.”
Training in the Nurtured Heart Approach provides specific, easy-to-understand techniques for systematically helping children and teens to experience successes and to employ and recognize their inner wealth on a daily basis.
