My oldest son has a new “friend” that’s a girl (we don’t want them to be boyfriend and girlfriend yet, but it looks like they’re moving down that road pretty fast. More on our feelings about that in another post). Anyway, Sarah came over after school to watch a movie with Bobby. That’s it – pretty benign, right? Well, not as far as my kid’s are concerned!

You’d think the sky was falling, or we were going to Disneyland or something. They all just became out-of-control kids: loud, no manners, saying inappropriate things, and on and on. This type of child behavior problems went on all night – long after Sarah had gone home for the evening. It was crazy! I was totally embarrassed, enough so that I canceled a fun family weekend we had planned.

What I came to realize is that my kids need to have a pretty structured schedule. They feel very out-of-control when anything is out of the ordinary at all. I believe this goes back to the very first months of their lives, when they weren’t cared for in a healthy way. So we are trying to keep it orderly and under control – therefore avoiding this type of children behavior issues.

I just happened to be browsing the Empowering Parents website, and I found an article by James Lehman called Are You Embarrassed By Your Child’s Behavior? 5 Ways To Cope that helped me out concerning my embarrassment.  It gave me a few tips, and I’ll share a little bit from the article.

1. Don’t guess what people around you are thinking. Unless they say flat out “You’re a horrible parent”, you don’t really know what they’re thinking. They could be thinking “I remember when my kid did that”, or “I’m glad I’m not going through that phase with my son anymore”. Don’t be a mind reader.
2. Focus on the behavior at hand: It’s not about you, it’s about the child. When your child misbehaves in public, they need something from you – focus on their needs, not your feelings.
3. Use “avoid” and “escape” as short-term strategies. If you know the type of situations that cause your kids behavior problems, try to avoid those situations. Also, give you and your child an “escape” plan – a way to get out of the situation if things start to break down.

These are just a few strategies I learned from this article. To read the whole article, click here.

For many more tips and techniques to deal with child behavior problem’s, check out The Total Transformation. It’s one of the best child behavior programs I’ve ever seen – it worked for our family, I’m sure it can work for yours!

The problem is that many teenage girls simply don’t know how to problem solve, and that’s why they act out and are disobedient and abusive. It’s how they control their life. They just use it to get what they want, instead of working through the problem.

If you’ve been considering a military school for your teenage girl, please do yourself (and your daughter) a favor and take a look at the Total Transformation Program by James Lehman. This program is designed to teach parents how to help their kids learn to problem solve, thereby eliminating the abusive behavior that comes from poor problem-solving skills. Mr. Lehman give you many tips and techniques to help your daughter to be successful in life.

One of our favorite techniques is to disconnect. What this means is stop communication with the child if they’re being abusive or disrespectful. Make it a power vacuum, and you’ll be amazed how fast things change. This is one that we’ve started using and I can’t believe how good it works. Communication should not resume until the child takes responsibility for their behavior.

This is just one of the tools we’ve learned that has worked for us. Mr. Lehman has hundreds more – and they all make sense and are easy to implement. Maybe a military school for girls is not the right answer. Take a look at The Total Transformation today. You’ve got nothing to lose, because now there is a limited time offer to get it for free! All you have to do is just order it and complete and return the enclosed Feedback Survey.  Do it today before it’s too late!

You can get positive parenting skills in many places: Books, friends, classes, online courses, and many more places. In fact, just surfing the web can give you lots of ideas. Some of our favorite parenting books are Parenting Teens with Love and Logic and For Parents Only. These 2 books will give you lots of helpful advice when it comes to dealing with teens. For Parents Only is pretty cool because it gives you information from a teenager’s point of view – the author interviews several hundreds of teenagers to get their opinions, good stuff.

A good website with lots of great parenting articles is minti.com. This one is full of articles written by experts – parents themselves! Anyone can contribute. Here’s an article called Rules, Boundaries, and Older Children from another great website with tons of good parenting advice.

The best product we’ve found so far that gives us positive parenting skills that are effective, long lasting and cover a huge range of parenting issues is The Total Transformation by James Lehman, MSW. The strategies he uses are simple to learn. They also deal with the heart behind the behavior which is where the long lasting piece comes in.

One of the tips that seems universal and had an immediate effect in our family was the Disconnect technique. The premise of this is to stop communication with your child if they become abusive or disrespectful.  Make it a power vacuum, and you’ll be amazed how fast things change. Communication should not resume until the child takes responsibility for their behavior. It is like a pressure release valve for the parent too. Screaming matches be gone!

This tool is just one of many that he outlines in this CD and DVD set. If you have a household that could use some peace and sanity, you need to read more here. Feel free to browse around this website and take away anything you need. We parents need to stick together!

For many more tips and techniques on parenting tools, check out The Total Transformation. It’s one of the best child behavior programs I’ve ever seen – it worked for our family, I’m sure it can work for yours!

So how do we accomplish this daunting task? By teaching our kids two skills – problem-solving and accountability. If you’ve got a disrespectful, belligerent child, you’ve probably got a child with a problem he doesn’t know how to solve. As a positive parent, we need to step them through the process of solving that problem, and being accountable for their actions.

1. Problem solving journey. The best way to approach this important life skill is to start at the earliest age possible. If they make the mess, they clean it up. Teach them one block at a time. Then face the next problem with that same mindset, one step at a time. This in itself is teaching them problem solving at the core level, from stepping back to form a plan of action through to completion. Let them try, and fail if necessary. Do not rescue!
2. Coach him forward. If you watch the last 2 minutes of a close NFL game you’ll notice the coach is usually all business and no emotion. This should be our goal as parents. We’re the trainers for the skills our children need to become successful, responsible adults. We need to be patient and calm as they go through the learning process.
3. You are their 1st role model. Sorry it is true. They are constantly watching your every move, good or bad. And learning from it. Approaching problems with a calm examining demeanor will lead them to do so. Don’t fret if you get frazzled over the banged fender every now and again, telling your child you handled that poorly and how you would do it differently next time, teaches them how to positively handle mistakes. Also start handing over life situations. Let them pay for their Happy Meal. This will help them become comfortable with handling their own life.
4. Be wise on when and what you teach them. Use your parent’s guage to determine what level of maturity they are at to determine what they can be successful at within a reasonable amount of time. Our goal is to teach them not defeat them. Let the bedspread be crooked and the crumbs be swept from the counter to the floor. Save perfecting these skills for the appropriate times down the road.
5. Encourage exploration and experimentation. As they get to be a teen, you need to let them try out their own ideas for problem-solving and encourage and praise their resourcefulness.
6. Keep setbacks and failures in perspective. This is life in a nutshell. Both experiences provide fertile ground for ongoing training. Look at these as opportunities that they are and you win. Calm and steady as you go and they win too.

While parenting, especially positive parenting, is a formidable task, do not lose heart. Especially with your teens. These previously mentioned skills will hopefully help you. These skills and many more are discussed in detail in The Total Transformation by James Lehman.