Relationships · positive parenting techniques

She Had Read Every Book. She Still Shouted on Tuesday Morning.

Positive parenting techniques are behaviors that require a specific inner state to produce naturally. Under stress, a parent defaults to their installed state, not their learned technique. This is why parents who know exactly what to do still find themselves doing the opposite. Installing the right parental states means the techniques become the natural response, not the effortful override.

Antano & HariniPersonal Evolution Scientists · Watch + read

Short on time? The video shows the change happen live. The article below walks it step by step.

The things to take from this

001Techniques are behaviors. Behaviors require a state.

Calm tone, natural consequences, validating emotions, these are all behaviors. Every behavior a parent has read about in a book depends on a state being present. When Tuesday morning arrives with a spilled bowl and a missed school bus, the state the parent is actually in determines what behavior comes out. The technique does not override the state. The state produces the behavior.

002Children read the state, not the words

A parent saying 'I understand how you feel' while visibly tense and checking the clock is sending two signals simultaneously. Children, especially young children, are calibrated to read physiological state in authority figures. The verbal message is the secondary signal. What the body is broadcasting is primary. This is why the technique lands differently depending on the state the parent delivers it from.

003Stress reveals the installed state, not the learned one

A parent who studies positive parenting has a cognitive map of how to respond. Under pressure, the system does not consult that map. It defaults to the installed pattern, the one laid down through years of repetition, through the way the parent was parented, through accumulated stress responses. The gap between what the parent intends and what the parent does under pressure is the gap between the learned technique and the installed state.

004When the state installs, the technique becomes automatic

Antano Solar John and the A&H team have worked with clients across 50 industries in 13 countries and over 2 million installations. The consistent finding is this: when the right state installs, the associated behaviors become natural. A parent in a state of genuine calm and genuine regard for the child does not need to remember to use a calm tone. The calm tone is the natural output of the state. Installation changes the source. The technique follows.

Part 01

She Knew Exactly What to Do. And Then She Shouted Anyway.

Meera was a primary school teacher in Pune who had spent two years studying child development. She had read widely on positive parenting, attended workshops, and understood the research on authoritative parenting styles. She knew that validating her child's emotions produced better outcomes than dismissing them.

She knew that natural consequences worked better than punishments. She knew that staying calm during tantrums set a co-regulation pattern her child needed.

Tuesday morning at 7:40, with the school bus arriving in six minutes, her seven-year-old refused to put on his shoes. Meera heard herself raise her voice. The morning ended the way she had promised herself it would not.

In the car on the way home, she replayed it. She had known what to do. She had simply not done it. The gap between knowledge and behavior was not a knowledge problem.

This pattern is not unusual. It shows up in every pediatric OPD where devoted mothers bring children who are escalating in behavior despite the parent's best intentions. After COVID, a wave of such cases appeared across India.

Mothers who had rearranged their lives around their children, who were attentive and present, who were saying all the right things and still watching the behavior worsen. The positive parenting tips were in place. Something else was not.

Antano Solar John, a Personal Evolution Scientist whose work spans 13 countries and more than 2 million installations, identifies the mechanism clearly. Before the child becomes hyperactive, ask what the parent is doing. The parent is apprehensive.

The parent's body broadcasts that apprehension before a single word comes out. The parent then says, sit here, be a good child, and the child becomes, as Antano describes it, all the more the bad child. The instruction to calm down arrives on top of a signal that already created the disturbance. The technique cannot undo what the state already installed.

Part 02

Why Positive Parenting Techniques Break Down Under Pressure

A technique is a learned behavior. You read about it, practice it in low-stakes conditions, build a cognitive association between the trigger and the intended response. This works well when the state the technique was learned in is the same state you are in when you need to use it.

A parent who practices calm responses during relaxed evenings at home has built those associations in a calm state. The technique is wired to that state. Under stress, a different state activates, and the technique is no longer the natural output of that state.

This is not a failure of effort or intention. It is a description of how the system works. The state that activates under pressure is the installed state, the pattern that has been reinforced over the longest period of time.

For a parent whose own upbringing involved harsh tones, the installed response to conflict in a child is a harsh tone. Reading ten books about positive parenting builds a cognitive layer on top of that installed pattern. The cognitive layer is accessible in calm conditions.

Under pressure, the installed pattern takes over because it runs faster and deeper than the learned layer.

Meera's knowledge of child development was genuine. Her understanding of what good parenting looks like was accurate. The gap was not in her information.

The gap was between her cognitive understanding and her installed state. On Tuesday morning at 7:40, the system did not consult her cognitive map. It defaulted to the pattern that runs automatically when the threat signal arrives.

That pattern was not built from reading about parenting. It was built from years of accumulated responses to stress.

The positive parenting literature almost never addresses this. It assumes that learning the technique and practicing it consciously will eventually generalize under pressure. For some parents, in some contexts, this is true.

For the majority of parents who study techniques and still find themselves behaving differently than they intend at critical moments, the missing layer is state. The technique is the behavior the right state produces. Without the state, the technique is an instruction the system has not yet internalized at the level that matters.

The pattern, as a circuit. One trigger, and it runs the full loop on its own. A pattern runs from one source. That is why it returns no matter how much effort goes in at the surface.

Part 03

What A&H Identifies That the Parenting Books Miss

The distinction

Antano Solar John draws on a mechanism identified by Milton Erickson and codified through decades of application: presupposition. When a parent is in a state of fear about a child's behavior, that fear transmits through unconscious rapport before any words are spoken. Children are in deep unconscious rapport with their primary caregivers from birth.

This means the parent's inner state is a constant broadcast, and the child is a constant receiver.

When a parent tenses before the child reaches for a glass, the nonverbal signal has already arrived. When a parent says, please do not knock that over, the verbal message rides on top of an already-transmitted presupposition that the child will knock it over. The child, in deep rapport with the parent, receives the presupposition as real.

The glass falls. The parent now has evidence that the child is careless. The limitation was installed through the presupposition, not through the child's actual capability.

This is why the A&H approach does not begin with technique. The approach begins with the parent's state. What does the parent actually believe about this child, in the moment before the child enters the room?

That belief is the broadcast. The technique is what the right broadcast naturally produces. A parent who genuinely sees a capable child, at the level of body and state rather than just as a thought, transmits that across thousands of interactions each year. The child receives it and organizes around it.

The work Antano Solar John and Harini Ramachandran do with parents is not a new set of instructions. It is the installation of states that make the positive behaviors natural outputs. A parent who has the state of genuine patience does not need to remember to be patient.

A parent who has the state of authentic regard for the child's capability does not need to remind themselves to validate emotions. The validation is what that state produces. The technique follows the state automatically, including under pressure, because under pressure the state is still there.

Part 04

What Changes When the State Changes

When the parental state installs at the right level, the first thing that changes is what the parent notices. A parent operating from a state of calm capability sees the child's behavior differently. The child who is refusing to put on their shoes is not mounting a challenge.

The child is in a state of their own, and the parent in the right state has the capacity to meet that state without being destabilized by it.

The second thing that changes is the transmission. The parent who walks into the room in a state of genuine steadiness is broadcasting something different before the first word. The child's system receives that broadcast and has a different response to the same trigger.

The shoes go on. Not because the parent used the right technique, but because the signal the parent was sending had changed.

Over time, this compounds. Each interaction where the parent's state holds steady is an interaction where the child's system receives a signal of safety and capability. These interactions accumulate into the child's installed pattern of how to be in difficult moments.

The parent's state becomes, through repetition and deep rapport, a direct input into the child's development.

Meera's Tuesday mornings changed when she stopped adding techniques and addressed the state she carried into them. The morning rush did not become calm because she remembered to use a calm voice. The morning became something different because the state she brought to it was different. The voice followed. The child felt it. The behavior changed without anyone announcing that a new approach was being used. That is what installation produces: behavior that does not require effortful override because the right state is the source. Watch: No Neutral Parenting to see this in action.

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Surface work bounces. Advice, effort and willpower operate at the level of conscious thought, so they bounce off. The pattern runs one level below. Change it there, and the old loop has nothing left to run on.

A × T = C™. Antano and Harini's formula: Adjustment times Time equals Consequences. Effort on the wrong adjustment barely moves the needle in decades. The right adjustment, made once at the source, compounds for years.

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Terms used on this page

Installed StateA pattern of response that has been reinforced at the level below conscious awareness, typically through repetition over years. When stress activates, the installed state runs faster than any learned technique. Positive parenting techniques depend on the right installed state to produce naturally under pressure.

PresuppositionA mechanism identified by Milton Erickson in which an assumption embedded in communication, verbal or nonverbal, transmits to the listener as experienced reality. In parenting, a parent's body-level belief about the child transmits as a presupposition before any words are spoken.

Unconscious RapportThe deep attunement between a child and a primary caregiver in which the caregiver's inner state transmits continuously as a signal the child receives and organizes around. This is why the parental state matters at a biological level, not just a behavioral one.

InstallationThe process by which a capability or pattern is established below the level of conscious execution, so that it runs automatically. In parenting, when the right state installs, the associated positive behaviors become the natural output without requiring effortful recall.

CascadeThe downstream effect of a single state-level change. When a parent's state installs correctly, the behavioral changes that follow are not isolated to one technique or one situation. The changed state produces different behavior across all the contexts that state touches.

Questions people ask

Why do positive parenting techniques stop working when I am stressed?

Because techniques are behaviors, and behaviors depend on a state to produce them. Under stress, the system defaults to the installed state, the pattern built up through years of repetition, not the pattern you learned from a book. The technique is what the right state produces naturally. Without the state, the technique is an instruction that runs in calm conditions and gets bypassed when pressure rises.

What are positive parenting techniques?

Positive parenting techniques include calm tone, validation of emotions, natural consequences instead of punishments, consistent boundaries, and collaborative problem-solving. Research consistently shows these produce better outcomes in child behavior and development. What the research also shows, though less often discussed, is that these techniques work because they operate from a specific parental state. A parent who has that state produces these behaviors automatically. A parent who does not has to work to produce them, and under pressure, the work fails.

How do I stay calm when my child is having a tantrum?

Staying calm during a tantrum is not primarily a technique question. It is a state question. A parent who has the installed state of calm under pressure does not need to apply a technique to stay calm. The calm is the natural output of the state. For a parent who does not have that state, techniques like slow breathing or counting can create a momentary pause, but they do not change the state itself. Addressing the installed state directly is what produces durable change in how a parent responds during tantrums.

How do I be a positive parent when I was not raised that way?

The parent's own upbringing installs the pattern that runs under pressure. When the parent was not raised with positive parenting, the installed state is a different one, and under stress, that older installed pattern activates. Reading about positive parenting builds a cognitive layer. What changes the installed pattern is work at the level below the cognitive. Antano Solar John and Harini Ramachandran work directly at that level, and the result is that the behaviors that once required effort become natural outputs of a new installed state.

Do positive parenting methods really work?

They do, and the research is clear on this. The outcomes associated with authoritative and positive parenting approaches include better emotional regulation, stronger academic performance, and more secure attachment. The gap in the research is that it measures the behaviors without accounting for the state the parent is in when producing them. Two parents using the same words and the same structure are not delivering the same signal if their inner states are different. The technique is necessary. The state determines whether the technique lands as intended.

The full session, in text

Read the full transcriptFor readers and search engines

After COVID, we suddenly got this, because mothers were very difficult. It was really difficult for mothers to take care of the kids. So they gave me... So what are they not able to do because they're hyperactive? Because they are hyperactive, they will not sit at a place. They cannot focus on anything. So give me an example. If they could focus, what would you want them to focus on? If they could focus, they would at least speak and have a good relationship with the parent, okay? Okay. I mean, they just leave on running, and then they cannot sit in a place, and few of them are so fidgety that they'll throw everything over here. Okay. Now, before the child becomes fidgety, what are the parents doing? Okay, they themselves are very apprehensive, yeah. But they'll come to the OPD and they'll start screaming, You're fine. Sit here. Don't behave like this. Be a good child. Be a good child. So he'll be all the more bad child. Yeah. Absolutely. So you have to start there. Okay, so a long time ago, Milton Erickson used to do this. You could sit. I mean, be comfortable. A long time ago, Milton Erickson, you know a lot of these installations is modeled from a hypnotist called Milton Erickson. Have you heard of Milton Erickson? No. Okay. So you know John Grinda, the creator of NLP? No. Okay. So. You know? Hypocrite. Yeah. Good doctor. Okay. Okay. Okay. So about 50 years ago, there was a man named Milton and people used to go to him and they would have different challenges and outcomes that they want to achieve. You know, some people wanted to win the gold medal somewhere and some people just wanted to get over simple things like bed wetting or eating disorder. And Milton would just keep talking to them and as they talked, they would all go into like one dream world. And when they come back, they know time has passed. They don't know what happened. But then when they would come back and meet Milton again, they wouldn't have the problems that they've had before. The only challenge with what Milton did was nobody could study what he was doing. In fact, there's a legend that goes that the medical board got so angry with him that they decided to cancel his license because he was a doctor. And they said, this guy is not able to explain the results that he's getting, so we shouldn't allow him to do what he's doing. And the legend goes that, you know, apparently the guy who was supposed to go and inspect Milton was on the same flight as Milton. And, and, and then he went back and said, Milton is doing great job. He should be allowed to do what he's doing. Now, there was an anthropologist and some of you might have heard of him. His name is Gregory Bates and he was married to the famous Margaret Meads. And he, one of his passion was to study societies, but he was also interested in studying geniuses and how they do. And Dr. John Grindor and Richard Bandler were actually students of Gregory Bates. And every time Gregory would send somebody to go and see what Milton is doing, they all would have the same response. When they come back and Gregory would ask, so what does Milton do? They all go, so finally, Milton sent John Grindor and Richard Bandler. And John Grindor came up with this idea that if I'm gonna study a genius, I'm not going to do analytical modeling, which he was well trained to do. But then he came up with this method of unconscious modeling, where he picks up very similar to what you did yesterday, but more systematic, where you have like a six months of mirroring and a parallel context where you can practice. So John would go there and he would mirror whatever Milton is doing. And if Milton is working on someone with asthma, then John would tell his team back in California, get me some people who wanna get over asthma. So he would mirror Milton for like 15 days and then he would go back to California and he would work with those people not knowing what he's doing. And over a period of a few long months, John and Richard were able to develop the skills that Milton had. And that is, and that is how they, they were the first people who were able to replicate that everything that Milton did. They were able to get the same results that Milton was able to want to create. And then they did something very interesting. They made it even better. You see, because Milton was polio struck when he was young and doctor said he was going to die and he somehow survived, but he was paralyzed. And most medical doctors said that he could never in his life walk again. And there was a time when Milton was sitting by the window and he was, as a little child, he was just sitting by the window and he was watching the streets. And then he used to see like all these children playing and the beautiful leaves just, you know, flowing with the wind and the flowers. And Milton just had this desire in his heart. What would it be like if I was just there on that road? And he felt his chair rocking. Now, Milton being who he is, he had that thought again and he felt the chair slightly rocking. So Milton thought if the chair is moving, I must be moving it. So he paid attention to his body and he noticed very small set of muscles having a very small movement. Today, we call them as micro muscle movements. And he noticed that and what he started doing is for hours together every day, he continued to hold on to that small movement and exercising those muscles. And month by month, the clusters of muscles that he was able to exercise started increasing and then he was able to walk again. And as luck would have it, polio struck him the second time, he became paralyzed. But Milton being Milton, he learned again how to walk although everybody thought it was not possible. But one of the side effects of Milton is that because he had polio and because his teats were like, you know, not properly formed, Milton used to talk in this voice and he would say, sit in that chair. Not because it was intentional but because that's what he could do. In fact, he was colorblind. The only color he could see was purple. So he was also tone deaf. So this is how he discovered mirroring. So what happened was Milton was once walking by the road and since he was tone deaf, he can't hear people singing. It all sounds like he's talking. And then he hears like these lots of voices talking together. So he goes inside a church to see what's going on and it's a choir and everybody is like singing. And Milton, since he can't hear the song, he notices them and notices that they're all moving together in the same way. So Milton thought maybe that's what gets people to feel connected to each other. And he came back and tried doing that. He started breathing the way someone was breathing. He started moving the way someone was moving and he noticed that there's an instant connection that he could feel with the people. Now, one of the things that Milton used to do, now Milton used to only teach medical doctors because he thought whatever he's doing is too powerful and it has to be only in the hands of medical doors and all of his documentation is like so long, like real medical literature, some good stuff for you to read. And one of the things he used to do is he used to get a group of doctors and he used to do demonstrations of trance induction. And then in the middle of it, he would bring like three, four people up on stage and he would officially put them into what is called and some blumenistic trance, which is they're awake, but they're in a different altered state. And then he would look very, very carefully towards the corner and he would look for a while and then he would say, what's the color of that dog? And somebody in the audience, the people who are sitting on the stage, one of them would say, it's a brown dog. And someone in the audience would invariably get up and say, what are you saying? It's a black dog. Now, the linguistic technique that is used in that elicitation is called presupposition. When you are in unconscious rapport with somebody, the things you assume becomes the reality of the person who you are in deep rapport with. So if Milton believed there's a dog and he was in so much unconscious rapport, and if he were to presuppose in his language, meaning assume there is a dog in his language, it's called presupposition, then most people who are in rapport with him would likely see a dog there. It's very simple, but when in the hands of people with authority who have natural unconscious rapport, it's very dangerous when they're unaware of what it can do. Okay, for example, there are people who say that they do this past life regression. Now, see, I'm not saying anything about past life regression. What I'm saying really is the technique that they use for past life regression. When you look at those videos, what do they do? They do the ancient, done to death, boring, hypnotic inductions that anybody does on the planet. Not very different. Not very different from classic hypnosis. And then they ask, who were you in your past life? Now, is that a presupposition? You guys get presupposition? Is there a dog there? Is that a presupposition? No. Is there a dog there? Is that a presupposition? No. There is a dog there. Is that a presupposition? No. What's the color of the dog? Presupposition. Did you have a past life? Is it a presupposition? No. Who were you in your past life? Presupposition. You get it? So there's an assumption that there is. And if you are vulnerable and someone has put you in a deep, altered state, if they ask you when did the aliens kidnap you, you will create memories that are not true. And that is why you have all of these things when you watch the process by where they arrive there, it's all templated. The same nonsense, you know, two hours of ritualistic, tiring transinductions, and the person is almost like, it's worse than taking halogens. And then the same technique, a simple technique called presuppositions. And for me, what is dangerous is not what hypnotists do, it's what people who don't think they're hypnotists do with presupposition. For example, there was a study that they tried to do that every child, one in five child has been, gone through physical abuse in their young age. Now, the way they did that study, and if you read through some of the documentaries, is they go and ask, so when you were a child, what's that uncle who touched you in a way that's inappropriate? You hear the presupposition in that language? Okay, tell me about your childhood now, what happened? You hear the presupposition? There was no linguistic presupposition, but there's a tonal presupposition, indicating something wrong happened. It's very different when you say, hey, what happened in your childhood? Now tell me about your childhood, what happened? You get that? So there's verbal presuppositions, there's nonverbal presuppositions, and a lot of times people induce beliefs, and then they say, I just asked them a question. But remember, when you are an authority figure to somebody, a question can change the way they think. Yeah, so, pardon me? It's like leading the person. It's more dangerous because it doesn't look like you're leading, and yet you have let the person to a particular answer. So when it comes to ADHD and other things that happen with children, one of the dangerous things that John Grinder spoke about is that, imagine the situation, okay? So there's a mother and a father, and they're really wanna be great parents, and they love their child, and they're expecting, and then this child is born, and they feel so much love, and that's the child's entire world to them. And suddenly, when the child is like two years old or three years old, they start noticing that the child isn't necessarily behaving like the way the other children do. So they're questioning themselves, you know? Am I doing wrong with my parenting? Is something wrong with me? Did I miss out? Was I busy with my work? And they have all these apprehensions, and then they go and meet a doctor. Now, a doctor accurately diagnoses and says, you know, your child had, let's say, for example, autism. Now, the parents did the right thing, the doctor did the right thing, so far everything is good. Now, autism is a wide spectrum. Okay, what it means is they can be ABCDE, EFG, HIJK, LMPQ, RST, UEWXYZ, and more symptoms, out of which maybe three or four is applicable to that specific child. Okay, so far everything is good. But then what happens after that is now the parents go to Google. What does autism mean? How do I take care of a child who has autism? Now, the child maybe has, you know, A and F and G and K symptoms. Now they're reading ABCDE all the way to Z. Now, in their head, they think this child has all of those symptoms. So, let's say, for example, one of the symptoms is they're careless with things. The next time the child picks up a jar, the parents are getting ready to go catch if it falls. You remember presupposition? You remember verbal and nonverbal presupposition? This is a nonverbal presupposition that you might drop. The second time, the third time, the fourth time, the child drops. And now there's one more element from the spectrum that was not originally part of the child that is induced. So, I think if you're working with parents, and especially children, and if you want to help them in this particular way, you have to become like a genius at helping parents drop their presuppositions that aren't real about the child. I know at this moment it feels impossible to do, and every time it's easier. When you follow the same child, you see the child deteriorate. And the whole hospital staff will come and say the mother creates more fuzz than the baby. So, it's easier for you to help the mother change? Yes. Wow, good luck. That only means you haven't tried yet. Okay. For the next step, I'll make a list of what I could do. But it's not impossible. Remember, the whole idea of installations is those very situations that looks impossible to change, you can actually make it happen. We never like to complete our video without giving you the opportunity to personally evolve and launch your legacy. Imagine for a moment, what would it feel like when you are impacting the world positively? So much. And enhancing your business, your health, your family, and legacy, all of this together, simultaneously, continuing to grow leaps and bounds, fast and smoothly. You've got the right motives. We believe Antonone Harni will be able to help you launch your legacy in compressed time. Get extension installation based fossil evolution and keep making the difference. Starting with yourself. Now. Antonone is beyond my thinking in his capability, ability, understanding. And I felt how can he can read me or my emotions also so well. He is amazing. He is a God sent gift to me. With every up, things are getting more and more refined. And as I was telling you that a lot of things are happening now where I'm able to see through a lot of things very clearly, that what's required without getting stuck with things. So earlier it was like even if I'm able to see through something, I will get stuck into certain emotions and all that. All of that is gone now. And it's more like that I am spotting everything a little early than I was earlier. And hence being able to very well adapting that what's coming my way. You do not have to be Michael Jackson or a TV star to be doing something meaningful where people are connecting to you. Back then I think you had to be like do something really extraordinary for you to shine as a personality, for people to know you, for you to impact the people around you. But today you can create impact in so many ways.!

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