Then it can be assigned but not turned in. That way, teachers can see who didn't learn the material with quizzes rather than grading homework which doesn't help every student.

OK, I think I can solve this pretty easily. I just have spend about 2 months reading a book called 'Unlimited Power' by Anthony Robbins and surfing the web for videos of his seminars and others. I have been reading about NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) ALOT so I guess i could be of some help here.

Before you can change anything in their behaviour towards you sir, you need to figure out how they perceive the world and how they perceive you. It's vitally important you remove your tags of them before you do this. With tags I mean things like, person X in school tends to be annoying or person Y is extremely popular. You need to think outside of these boxes and be dirt-honest with yourself about it. If you have difficulty to step inside their shoes let me give you some pointers on what to look for.

1. What are their believes? (I do not mean religion here). A example believe could be: everybody on the workspace is lazy except for me.
A belief in NLP is a perception of the world you (or in this case your parents) hold for true. People can have tons of different believes. It can be as simple as: "purple is an ugly color" to "I am significant at home because I supply all the money for the family".

Just getting a slight sense of this will do. Try to pen down at least 3 believes of each of your parents, preferably more serious ones then the "purple is ugly" thing.

2. Understand and apply the six human needs. EVERYONE in life has need of the underneath and everyone values ONE above ALL others.

->Certainity (I want to feel certain about my relationship, I want to feel certain about my job, I want to feel certain about my future)
->Uncertainity/Variety (More adventurous and outgoing people will have this on the top of their list. So if your parents are adventures and like to go bungee jumping or anything like that then uncertainity is their top need (their needs need not to be the same, they probaly are not))
->Love/Connection (You want to feel loved by others. You want to feel socially important)
->Significance (Same as Love but in a more general way, you want not only to feel loved but to be appreciated and respected. High pride indicates a seek for significance (I myself have this one as my top need))
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OK, the underneath remaining two needs are spiritual needs. Needs for the mind, not for the physique or the rationale.
->Growth (you want a feeling of having done more, achieved more and still growing! Highly motivated people will show this or low motivated people will strive for this)
->Contribution (Same as significance but on a more spiritual level)

Now just take me for granted here that this system of needs, this anarchy is flawless. It works time and time again and is idiot-proof. The main problem in getting to know someone's needs is that most of the time they are striving for a need but NOT reaching it. This causes awkard behaviour. Every time you felt someone behaved innaturally it was probaly because his or her mind was taking a shortcut to fullfill their needs.

Anger and depression are great examples of shortcuts to needs. If you get angry you get certainity at a level 10 (being the very highest). If you feel sad then it will attract attention from others making you feel loved and significant. These are however bad ways to gain what you need. Bad in the sense that these are artificial ways of craving your needs, this will only lead to you wanting to fullfil that need more and more and in a better and authentic way.

I realize that this isn't very specific to your parents yet. But hey, I don't know them. You do. These are strategies to unveil what makes someone tick. This answers the why, and if you know why then you can solve it.

3. Metaprograms. What are the metaprograms your parents run? Let me explain what metaprograms in NLP are in the first place, there are three main metaprograms:

->Frame of reference
->Goal movement
->Matching

a. Frame of reference. People have an internal or external frame of reference. One may get motivated if someone else says "you are doing great" or "nice performance there!'. This is a external frame of reference. An internal frame of reference refers to self-talk. Self-talk is very strong and important. If you feel miserable, unwanted and sad then it's because you are saying to yourself that you are miserable and unwanted. As long as you say "I can't do X" changes are highly unlikely you can. If you say "I can do X (and I motivated to do so(because...))" then this will crave a positive self-image and self esteem which will automatically inflict greater confidence. Confidence by the way is not being "sure" it is being your natural self, and believe me, most people are not their natural selves. For if they were then all those people would have been far more succesfull then they are now. Being confident is being at ease with yourself and being at ease to show to others that inner diamond that is you. Confident is to not pretend to be but to be. So I have nested quite a bit here, all the way down to confidence so let me get back up on internal reference. Internal reference is possessed naturally by leaders because if they were to be influenced by what others said about how they performed they could never have achieved a leader status. Just be alert of how often you are saying to yourself 'Ooh that didn't went too good' or 'Wow I really blew my exam here". Instead of saying these things move into perspective and say "I did not perform in the same fashion as others but I did actually do it in the first place which is a good thing' or "I might have performed less good than others on this exam but I have good grades on the other studies and since those are more in my interest I do not need to really worry about this". Let me give you another trick. Notice the word "but" in my examples here? "But" falsifies everything that has been said before it. So if someone says: "I like your idea but...." then it most of the times means "I don't like your idea, here is a better one"

b. Goal movement. Are you moving away from something or towards something? The best example I can give to explain the principle is through pain. Pain is a natural aspect of live and there are two ways to deal with it. You can move towards something (a goal) but encounter pain during that movement or you can decide not to set a goal but to try and avoid pain. So you can be moving towards something or away from it. If you want to achieve something it is better to move towards something, trying to avoid something makes you go focused on it and focus can be very powerful (in bad ways too). Ever had a fever? Yes? Good. Because then you'll probaly agree with me that during you being ill you noticed that alot of other people were ill too. This is false. This is focus. Since you are ill you focus automatically on being ill and therefore notice all the "illness' around you. It's like I told you to count the number of red objects in the room you are in right now. And then I told you to keep counting in every room you go the number of red objects. Within no time you are bound to see red everywhere.

c. Matching. This is an easy one. Basically you can either match or mismatch. lets take this image:
 

A matcher says: here are three smilies
A mismatcher says: here are three different smilies

there is some fintuning in this but for the sake of clarity I will leave that out.

4. Persuasion. In order to get what you want (in this case your calc and access to a PC) you'll need to be persuasive. Before you can be persuasive you need to be confident.
Could you please think of a time in your mind at which you were very confident. Can you see the image in front of you? Or do you hear sounds? maybe you feel whatever it was you were touchin or maybe you can smell or taste something. Now I want you to feel confident at level 5 (0=completely unconfident 10=extremely confident). Please stand up for me right now.

>If your memory is primarily an image then brighten it up. Saturate the colors and really tune the brightness of it up. Also make the image more crispier in your mind and let it slowly grow and move towards you. Raise your confidence level to a 7

>If your memory is primarily a sound then tune it up, make it louder. Raise the timbre make it sounds as crisp and highdef as possible. Make it live inside you as if you were there. Raise your confidence level to a 7

>If your memory is primarily a feeling then tune up your sensitivity (note feeling can also be internal->emotion) feel the texture of it. Feel the ectasy of that moment and how happy you were. Raise your confidence level to a 7

Now if you really can't recall a memory of this sort then lie to yourself. Ever wanted to be like V in V for Vendetta or like Neo in the Matrix? Then just presume you were that person and let your fantasy run crazy on it. Then rewind this as if it were an authentic memory and apply the above.

Ok now I want you to put your hands behind your back and to grab your own hands together. Please now raise your confidence to a 8. Raise your shoulders. Hold your head high and pull your chest out front a bit. You are now at level 9 of confindence. Now you take a deep breath and let it sore trough you making every fiber in you itch with that undeniable feeling of confidence. You are now at a level 10 of confidence! Whatever you do now you do confidently, whatever action you take will turn golden. You are in a extremely resourcefull and powerfull state right now! So make a fist out of your right hand and hit your upper left chest with it as you say out loud: "Strength".

Great! you have now anchored confidence within yourself! If you have more then one memory of being confident (which I am sure you have) then please do the exact same exercise only with that different memory. This is called stacking and makes you even more confident whenever you fire the anchor. Firing the anchor is easy. Just at anytime you need confidence hit yourself on the upper left chest with your right hand (in a fist) and say: "Strength"

You will feel the confidence ooze through you at that very instant! Change your breathing, make slow and relaxed and deep. Breathe throughout your stomach all the way up to your chest, neck and then let the air slip in and out through your nostrils. It's all about changing your physiology to a confident one.

Ok now that you feel confident you can easily persuae someone. Unless, they dont trust you. To build trust you use rapport. Rapport is basically mirroring the body langauge of the person you are talking to (or sitting in front of). It takes a bit of practice but since it is very covert you need not fear of getting caught. So what do you mirror?

->Posture: If someone leans in forward you do that as well. If someone leans left or right you do that too. Just about any movement you can see without staring you just copy it.
->breathing and pulse. You can try to match someones breathing by breathing at the same rate but its more covert and easier to just tap in the rythym of their breathing and/or pulse with your fingers.
->Tonality and speed. If someone talks fast then you should talk fast too. If someone talks in a deep low pitched voice then you should too.
->gestures. Speaks for itself, just copy it! You'll see that one gesture relates to a certain state or word as well. So if one talks about travelling from A to B changes are he gestures to the left when talking about A and gestures right when he talks about B (or vice versa). So if you start to talk about travelling use those same gestures!

This is the art of making someone feel at ease with you. If you want to build a (love)realationship with someone then copy their body language!
Did you realize that 40% of a message is body language? That's why internet sucks at times because there are no gestures to look for and no clues on intention.

The last thing I want to give to you is the need of two things:

you will need to be flexible. Sir, you're goal is to get your parents yo give you your calc back. You have not one way to do it. All you have are strategies "plans of", ideas. These might work or might not work. For whatever reason you must be able to change your strategy. You can never, ever fail. There is only result. The result brings you closer to your goal or further from it. If you are moving towards it then you can keep your current strategy, if you move away from it, it's time to change.

This brings me to the last thing I have to tell you and one thing that you need to value most. The key to succes is commitment. Subconsciously you know that all of what I've said is true. And it will work. It does all the time. It did when you bought that product. Really the only reason you buy something is because you feel like you need it. You feel that way because salesmen are NLP experts and have programmed you, yes literally programmed you to buy their product. So many people in the world already know all this stuff that makes up NLP but they never get the succes out of it Just because they simply will not Do It.

I hope this helped many of you who feel they need to persuae somebody or just in general improve their quality of life.

All the best,

Matthias1992

Holy shit Matthias

That's a long post 

But unfortunately human Psychology isn't quite that simple.

Human variation is what I mean. You'd be hard pressed to find any two people whose psychology is identical.

That's a long post  

But unfortunately human Psychology isn't quite that simple.

Yes and no.
Yes because I am not a NLP expert + I intentionally left some stuff out (and I did some covert techniques in the text itself which motivates you to do the confident building technique)
No because NLP is very flexible. It is not a way of describing someone's psychology it is about understanding it. NLP provides, on one hand, some pointers as to how people work which just gives you a quick overview about how someone thinks. One can analyze in a matter of seconds what the best strategy is to sell something to somebody. Let me teach you all a new principle. People have five senses. Three of which are extensively used. Those three are: hearing, touching and seeing. In nice terms: auditory, kinesthetic, visual. Everybody uses those three senses but it differs per person which is the most used one. There is always One Topping the others. I myself am auditory. It's pretty easy to figure out. I think you like this because this system uses a mathematical like style of notating strategies.

-> Visual: I can see your point: It is getting wet, I saw big clouds overhead
-> Auditory: I can hear your point/your logic is sound to me: It is getting wet, I heard thunder rumbling
-> Kinesthetic: Your point makes sense to me: It is getting wet, I felt raindrops

Now a strategy is a very cool thing to understand. Basically in everything you do behind it lies a strategy. Everyone has ways of doing things. Before I can explain this further I need to make a more detailled specification when it comes to the represantational system above.

There are two main subdivisions: internal (emotionally) and external (what others say/direct/physique).

Visual External a.k.a Ve = The things you see
Visual Internal a.k.a Vi = The things you picture in your mind (seeing yourself doing this or that)
Auditory External a.k.a Ae = The things you hear from others
Auditory Internal (Dialog) a.k.a Ai(d) = The things you say to yourself/self-talk
Kinesthetic External a.k.a Ke = Things you physically touch
Kinesthetic Internal a.k.a Ki = Emotions, how your gut feels or felt.

Now the cool thing is that you can use modeling to become a expert at anything. If you can figure the strategy of a highly motivated person could you then become a expert at that thing X too? You bet. Within a small amount of time? You bet. Within even just a matter of days?? You bet.

A motivated person might first picture himself doing something, then talk to himself to crank up his motivation and then just does it! This strategy would be: Vi->Ai(d)

You can model someone's expertise easily.

1. Get yourself familiar with recognizing strategies, just try to figure some of your own and those of relatives.
2. Built rapport with the one you want to model
3. Ask cleverly (I'll do that later on sometime, I am getting a bit tired of all the typing)

For now just practice on getting familiar with recognizing strategies. For example: What do you do when you are motivated? How do you determine you are motivated?

just by asking these two questions you can figure your own motivation strategy. Don't be surprised if you have a visually based strategy whilst you are mostly auditory, it's actually good news because now you change your strategy to auditory. It will work far better for you.

Quote from: Qwerty.55 on December 11, 2010, 05:24:33 pm

That's a long post  

But unfortunately human Psychology isn't quite that simple.

truly it is.

the problem is that it will fail if a variable is misinterpreted.

I don't quite agree with you. First of all because you used the word "fail" which is prohibited in my dictionary
second is that you must Take Signals in Clusters. You can't say that somebody is angry because he/she has his/her arms crossed. So misinterpreting one variable does not result in automatic failure. Always take signals in context.

Thank you all for your kind words and respects, I never saw that coming. I just thought I'd share this with you. It's Very Powerful stuff.

Quote from: Qwerty.55 on December 11, 2010, 06:14:38 pm

Human variation is what I mean. You'd be hard pressed to find any two people whose psychology is identical.

Even identical twins are different--it's a matter of nature and nurture.

Correct. NLP is providing structures and methods that work on 99% of the people. And if one method does not work on person A then changes are very slim a other method wont work either. NLP also wields the power of language. Both verbal and nonverbal language. NLP has some much tricks in it that it has a 100% succes rate because no one is completely immune to NLP (except for the dead xD)

First of all because you used the word "fail" which is prohibited in my dictionary :)

To quote the lovely folks from 'Mythbusters', "failure is always an option".

NLP is providing structures and methods that work on 99% of the people. And if one method does not work on person A then changes are very slim a other method wont work either. NLP also wields the power of language. Both verbal and nonverbal language. NLP has some much tricks in it that it has a 100% succes rate because no one is completely immune to NLP (except for the dead xD)

It is impossible to have a 100% success rate--at least, not without someone fudging the data. And until you provide me with quantifiable, unbiased, scientific fact, I am inclined to be very dubious of your claims.