Some days I want to just want to give in. Let them make a second dinner they like, take off the time limits on the computer, not be their friends on Facebook, no grounding for bad grades, let them text at the dinner table, not check in where they are at, wake them when they oversleep, don’t remind them to brush their teeth or take a shower or pick up their dirty clothes. Let them leave their dishes everywhere, stay up as late as they want, have snacks right before dinner, not have to go to church or youth group with the family or say thank you or please, drive them to school when they are late and take their homework when they forget it. Buy them whatever they ask for in the store and drive them where ever they want to go whenever they want to go. Let them go to parties without checking to see if parents are going to be there or go places with their “friend” without chaperoning no matter what their age. Allow them to talking rudely to us or others without any reprimand. Don’t do chores or participate in family work projects. Never ask them to help set the table, clear the table or empty garbages. Oh how much easier life would be!
Or would it?
Maybe for just the moment but boy would I pay later. Why, you ask? Because an undisciplined child feels unloved. And in order to get disciplined (aka be loved) they will up the ante. “Where is the boundary?” they will ask and push until they find it. So for my momentary respite I pay for it with at least hours of recuperation. I muster on!
Could you use some parenting help?
One tool that we’ve used is Total Transformation by James Lehman. It’s given us a lot of solid, common sense ideas for parenting our challenging children.
I have a child who is self-declared lazy. He has no bones about looking you straight in the eye and saying “NO” when asked to do something. And if he is mad because he can’t do something he wants, simply walking away is his method of rejection your request. Only if there is a tangible reward, he may comply. But if he can’t get his way, no carrot is sufficient. Sadly, sometimes he will let others down just to not give in to us. Yeah, it is a lesson in frustration.
Now don’t get me wrong. We have trained this child up since he was a toddler, “brush your teeth, make your bed, get dressed”. As the years have progressed, daily and weekly chores were added with appropriate training, rewards and eventually consequences if needed. Then he hit adolescence and found out he has power. And the boy who decided at 2, he no longer wanted to wear diapers and potty trained himself in 3 days, used that inner drive to get only what we wants in life. I gotta teach this kiddo about accountability.
Since we can check off the training, we must still work on rewards and consequences. I did find some good tips on how to do this in the Total Transformation parenting information.
A Different Way of Saying Things
Words are powerful. It always amazes how adding (or sometimes deleting!) a word can totally open up the communication between two people. Boy, can I use that for this new challenge.
- Responsibility. Start pointing out all the responsibilities everyone in all the house is doing. “Cooking dinner is my responsibility”. “Dad’s responsibility is going to work so we can have food so I can cook dinner.” “Brushing your teeth is a responsibility”. You get it, I am sure.
- Rewards. Now use the same philosophy with rewards. “This is your reward for doing your homework”. “You are getting this reward because you didn’t yell at your brother today”.
- Consequences. Then – “This is the consequences for not completing your schoolwork”. You are getting this consequence because you didn’t complete your chores this morning”.
It might be helpful to have worked up some rewards and consequences beforehand. That way you don’t have to think on your feet. Ask them what they would like rewards to be, like what they would like to do. Just be sure it doesn’t money, buying or spending! And remember teens rewards do not usually involve spending time with you.
Consequences also can be discussed. This may look like withholding things, like electronics, or assigning extra chores. It is important here to find the buttons that work. If I were to withhold electronics and then assign extra chores, I would be spitting in the wind. Also, I have had to learn to be reasonable about my time lengths for consequences.
So I had better get started with this new language. The clock is ticking…
That’s a couple Total Transformation Techniques that work for us. For many more tools and techniques make sure to check out Total Transformation today. It’s worked for us!
A+ Child Requirements
We tell our children that they need to be A+ kids, and there are only three things they have to do to accomplish this. These three things are to be respectful, responsible, and fun to be around. When you think about it, pretty much any behavior can fall in these three areas, and therefore if they aren’t A+ kids then you can name the category pretty easily.
Want some examples? We have family night every Saturday night, and on one family night much to my children’s chagrin we filled out a big poster board with examples of the three categories. Here are some of the things they came up with:
Respectful
- Saying “Yes, Mom” and “Yes, Dad”
- Leave other people’s things alone
- Keep your word
- Be kind
Responsible
- Do your chores without being asked
- Fast and snappy and right the first time
- Clean up after ourselves
- Ask for help
- Be honest
- Take care of feelings in an OK manner
Fun to be around
- Don’t call names
- Give people a chance
- Brush teeth
- Listen and don’t interrupt
- Don’t swear
- Good manners
In addition, we also came up with a list of “feeling words”, which we’ve discovered our kids have difficulty using. We’ve been trying to teach them how to tell each other (or us) how something makes them feel, instead of just saying “You’re a jerk” or “I hate you”. Some of the feeling words they came up with were:
- Embarrassed
- Angry
- Happy
- Lonely
- Sad
So, if you’re really looking for something fun to do on a Saturday night, make an “A+ Child” poster of your own!
Looking for parenting help?
One tool that we’ve used is the Total Transformation program by James Lehman. It’s given us a lot of solid, common sense ideas for parenting our challenging children.
James Lehman created The Total Transformation, a comprehensive, multi-media program offering parents practical solutions to the most challenging problems facing them from their children, including disrespect, lying, swearing, defiance and acting out in school.
James Lehman, MSW (Masters of Social Work) worked for more than 30 years with troubled teens, children, and their families to educate, treat, and assist them in improving child behavior. He certainly had the experience to help these families, as evidenced by his own life.
James was born in 1946 and was abandoned at the age of 2 by parents unable to care for him. He was adopted by Teddy and Marguerite Lehman, who went on to raise him. He exhibited defiant behaviors as he grew up, and they gradually grew more severe, until he quit school, left home and lived on the streets of New York City. He started using drugs and alcohol, which eventually led to a life of crime. He spent more than 6 years in various prisons. He was then given an opportunity to participate in an accountability-focused treatment program.
After graduating from that program, he became a staff coordinator and his career as counselor and therapist began. He went to several schools including Fordham University and Boston University where he graduated with a Master’s Degree in Social Work.
While working at a residential treatment center, James began private practice and started providing treatment and training to families, schools and state agencies. This is where he started providing the tools to parents, teachers, and case workers that eventually were developed into the Total Transformation program, which is designed to teach kids problem-solving skills so they would be able to be successful in life without using disrespectful and abusive behavior.
James Lehman has a no-nonsense but compassionate way about him, and though most of the things he tells you in his program seem very simple and “are just common sense”, there were a lot that I didn’t think of on a daily basis. He has definitely helped our family to learn to problem solve, and our house to become a calmer, more peaceful place. I totally recommend the Total Transformation Program to anyone that has difficult children they are trying to bring up properly.
Note: Information for this article was obtained mainly from the Total Transformation website and personal knowledge of the life and methods of James Lehman.
Do you have teenagers in your house? Then you absolutely have to have an internet monitoring software solution loaded on all the computers in your house! This is mandatory, and if you don’t have it there is no telling what your kids are looking at on the web.
Not only that, but in this age of social networking, sites like MySpace, YouTube, and especially Facebook are extremely popular – and extremely dangerous! One of the goals of users of MySpace and Facebook is to see how many friends you can get. I’ve seen kids with thousands! Do you really think a kid has more than 1000 friends, especially ones that he or she talks with on a regular basis? Doubtful! So obviously, many of these so-called “friends” are people that the kids don’t know at all. For this reason, there are many predators hanging around these sites. It’s no problem at all for someone to pass themselves off as someone they’re not and gain the trust of your child. From there, it’s simple to find out where they live and to possibly show up at your house!
Obviously, that’s not all. There are also sites filled with pornography, how to make weapons, hatred, and on and on. So what are you supposed to do about this?
The most important thing you can do is to get an internet monitoring software program. James Dobson recommends K9 Web Protection. I haven’t used this one, but it must be good if Dr. Dobson likes it. The one we use at our house is called Safe Eyes. I think this is the most advanced internet filtering software available. In addition, it’s extremely easy to use. It really works for our family.
Safe Eyes gives you a great amount of flexibility in how you limit your kid’s time on the internet and content they are able to view. You can set up individual accounts for each of your kids and you’re able to control when they can get on by time of day. You can also limit the sites they are able to view by the category. Some of the categories you can choose are Nudity, Pornography, Profanity, Swimsuits, Social Networking, Gambling, Jokes, and many, many more.
Another option that is available is to block certain video sites: You can block all YouTube videos, or any with inappropriate content. You can also block internet TV based on the rating of the show.
Music: you can block any music with explicit lyrics and if you want you can restrict peer-to-peer file sharing, which keeps your kid from sharing illegally downloaded music and videos. These type of files also often contain malware which can harm your computer.
You can also block and/or monitor instant messaging services like Yahoo!, AIM, and MSN/Live Messenger, and you can block access to web-based chat rooms.
Gaming/Gambling. You can block access to online gameplay and access to gaming websites.
You can block Social Networking sites and/or monitor posts containing addresses, profanity, and sexually suggestive terms. In addition, you are able to restrict access to email, whether it’s web-based or non web-based.
One of the other cool things about Safe Eyes is the fact that you get a report sent to your email from each computer and detailing each user’s activity over the prior period, whether it’s daily or weekly. It gives you the terms they searched on, sites that were blocked, and other various information. It’s a great accountability tool.
If you think your child will never look at any of these sites, think again! They’re young and they haven’t really developed a conscience yet, and these sites are extremely enticing. In fact, it’s not a bad idea to have this software on your computer even if you don’t have kids in the house – it will certainly cut down on temptation.
So, if you’re looking for a great internet monitoring software, look no further than Safe Eyes.
Note: If you’re looking for a program to limit the actual time the child can be on the computer, not just the internet, the one we use is ComputerTime. To read our review of ComputerTime, click here.
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