Thanks Tiger Woods – We  learned a new frustration relieving technique this week watching golf. You think it will catch on?!

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About the author: By Matt Hellstrom

Matt is the parent (along with his wife Julie) to five wonderful kids. He has been self-employed for 25+ years and is the owner of the Positive Parenting Skills website.

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Have these difficult economic times affected you and your family? Have you or a family member lost your job? If not, you are very fortunate. If so, you are one of thousands. And if so, how are you coping?

Today, I want to talk about ways we can continue to provide for our families even in the face of losing a job.

Last year I lost my job, a career spanning 21 years. My husband and I lost half of our household income. It was a devastating blow. So many things we took for granted were cut completely out of our lives. And just like many of you who were faced with that heartwrenching call to the little conference room where our bosses gave us their good-byes, we’ve had to figure out how to continue to pay for the basic necessities of life: keeping our home, paying our utility bills, buying groceries, and providing for our kids.

Six ways we provided for our family

1. First of all, buying new clothing and toys became impossible. We now look at the thrift stores for what we need. And our son actually gets a kick out of it. (He is only eight years old though, and if he were older it may be another story altogether!) When he outgrows his clothes, we find “new” ones at a second hand store. The selection might not be as cut-and- dried as the clothing stores, but we eventually have found everything we need for clothes, even down to shoes, boots, and backpacks. And of course he always has fun choosing a toy which he has earned through helping with chores around the house. But what’s more is that I have found other things we need like dishes and utensils, even comforters.
2. Secondly, we had to look at our bills. What could we do without? Many things that we love and define ourselves by had to go. My dance and pilates classes. Our YMCA membership. Cable. Cell phones. Full coverage car insurance. Our oil furnace. Costco membership.
3. Then, we had to take a look at our other spending habits: Eating at restaurants (even the fast food ones), going to movies, my MaryKay account, vacations, golfing, trips to Riverfront Park and Silverwood, gifts and extra money for our other family members, and splendid Christmases. And we thoroughly enjoyed all of these! But they were no longer affordable.
4. Then, our grocery bill had to be cut in half. We used to enjoy lots of food, and the ability to stock up on everything, even cooking for other people. Now we were beginning to see our own pantry shelves and refridgerator becoming empty. The solution? We stopped shopping at the regular grocery stores and began going to bargain markets. We kept tabs on the prices between the discount stores in town. We stopped eating so much meat. Where we used to have steaks (remember the mobile steak guy driving up to the door and selling scrumptious cuts of sirloin?) and chicken, and we now find more things to do with hamburger, vegetables, eggs, tuna, and pasta. We’ve made vegetarian pizza, and its great! And with all of this downsizing and having to cook at home, we may even find better health.
5. Also, our child care bill had to go. Where we used to be able to pay for child care expenses, we now were no longer able to afford it. To solve this problem, my husband (bless his heart) was able to switch to the night shift.
6. I had to get creative about how I looked for jobs. I asked my vet if I could help out in their clinic, and they actually said yes. While working there I continued to search. I eventually got a job at the same hospital that laid me off, only in a different department for half the money. But every little bit helps, right? And now I am writing this article! Tough times force us to get creative, and in the long run it may make our lives even better than they were before.

With making all of these changes, we were able to keep our beloved pets, our child’s taikwondo lessons, and most of all, our house, and food on the table. With my husband working nights and me working during the day and evening hours, we’ve managed to avoid child care expenses.

This year I will be finishing up my clinicals for a new job, making our future outlook a little brighter.

Even though losing our job may seem like the end of our world, getting rid of the extras may help out more than we realize, and taking whatever work is out there in the mean time will only help us get back on our feet. In these tough times, we are taking the term “think outside the box” to a whole new level!

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.

About the author: By Kris Fino

Kris is wife to Robert and mom to Gabriel, a wonderful little boy. She enjoys animals, especially horses, and likes to write about children, pets, and other things close to her heart!

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I saw this funny video the other day, and while I don’t recommend this dad’s parenting technique (though it is tempting sometimes!), it got me to thinking about a parenting issue that I’ve been struggling with lately.

While I don’t think it’s right to lie to your children, I do think it’s right to tell them the truth – the whole truth – once  they get to a certain age. What exactly am I saying? Just that while it’s OK to build them up and work on giving them confidence, I think we need to be honest with them about where they are in life.

Case in point

Our daughter was doing poorly in school the last few years. “C” average at best, and many classes that she actually flunked. We’d go in to her conferences, hoping that the teachers would be honest with her, and tell her that her chances of getting into college were going down the drain with her grades, but they’d listen to her statements of “I want to be a doctor” or “I want to be a social worker”, or whatever, and they’d nod and say “That’s awesome that you have those dreams. You can do anything you set your mind to.” That kind of talk.

I think too often nowadays people aren’t honest with other people for fear of hurting their feelings, damaging their relationship, or just not caring! That’s not right! My wife and I have talked to our daughter until we’re blue in the face, but of course she doesn’t listen to us. Maybe if one of her teachers would shoot straight with her she’d listen to them.

It’s worth a try, right?

We got an interesting post on our forum recently from one of our faithful contributors, Jeri from Valley Family Life that does respite care with RAD kids, among other things. It was in response to a question about how to handle “tweeners“. Here it is.

 How I Handle All Kids

While I totally agree with the techniques and the whole idea of the post, I have sadly come to doubt the last sentence – that real life will not make accommodations for our children’s behavior. I found that out recently at my daughter’s school. My hope is that more teachers, judges, peers, parents, and friends will start being honest (in a loving way) with our children today.

Do you need help with your parenting?

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 – and it’s right along these lines of helping your child to learn to problem-solve and cope in the “real world”.

About the author: By Matt Hellstrom

Matt is the parent (along with his wife Julie) to five wonderful kids. He has been self-employed for 25+ years and is the owner of the Positive Parenting Skills website.

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Apologies are an interesting thing. We were taught as youngsters to always say “sorry”. That is the right thing to do. It just has always bothered me, first to tell my kids to say it and second, the way they say it. ‘Soooorrry’, sniff just does not evoke relationship mending feelings. Over my parenting years I have learned a few things that might clear up and direct us in a more positive training approach in regards to “I am sorry”.

1. Say “Sorry”. Yes a child needs to apologize but it must be from a truly repentant heart. Otherwise it is just lying. They are not sorry. And now they are even more upset for being busted too! Teaching them what sorry really means is better first than just telling them to say sorry. You can say, “Look if you are not sorry, don’t say you are sorry.  But you do have to say you were wrong and what you are going to do differently next time.”
2. What sorry really means. Sorry must mean what they did is wrong. If they just sorry without stating what they did wrong, nothing is learned and nothing will change next time.
3. Sorry but…This technique deflects responsibility. This means more training is needed in taking responsibility for one’s behavior. Don’t  be afraid to address this. “Stevie, it sounds like you are apologizing but you are blaming your sister. So which is it? Are you sorry or is it her fault?”. This can enlighten you and lead to the next point.
4. Problem solving. So what are they going to do differently next time? Here is where you get a chance to turn this around. Because, most of the time, the need for sorry has come out of poor problem solving anyway. You can talk to them directly or use the What Happened sheet. The What Happened Sheet has 5 questions – 1. What happened? 2- What was I feeling (let them tell you and mad is an okay answer for a while). 3 – How did you handle it? 4 – How did that work out for you? 5 – How can I handle it better in the future? Let them make the first suggestion and say something like “that is one way to handle it. Have you thought about this?” This is a good way to brainstorm and affirm their thinking on their own too!

I know this all sounds good in the quiet of the moment, right? Maybe there is a point to that. Not reacting in the heat of the moment might actually end up helping everyone in the long run!

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 – including this tip about not saying sorry if you don’t mean it!

About the author: By Julie Hellstrom

Julie is an awesome parent (along with her husband Matt) to five adopted kiddos and the owner of the Positive Parenting Skills website.

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I was watching the Jump Start DVD from James Lehman in his Total Transformation program yesterday and it really hit home with me and made sense. Mr. Lehman talks about parenting the child you have, not the one you wish you have. When you have kids (or adopt them, as we did) you have this picture in your mind of what that child’s going to be like when they get bigger. What I’ve found is it’s very hard to get that picture out of your mind when you find out what the child is actually like.

One example is sports – Dad dreams of having a son that plays football, basketball, and baseball like he did when he was a kid. He enrolls his child in T-Ball, Pop Warner football, and so forth, faithfully attending all the games and encourages him all along the way. But the kid wants to be in band and debate. So Dad needs to drop his dreams, and encourage the child in the child’s dreams.

Having a special needs child is another great example, used by James Lehman in the video above. He talks about you having to be a special needs parent in order to be able to give that child the tools he needs to survive and be successful in the world today.

Total Transformation gives you those tools. This program is not for parents of compliant, well-adjusted children. It’s designed for parents of defiant, out-of-control children who may suffer from ADD, ADHD, ODD, Asperger’s, and many other disorders. Take a look at their website and see if what he talks about resonates with you in any way. It’s helped our family, and I bet it can help yours too!

About the author: By Matt Hellstrom

Matt is the parent (along with his wife Julie) to five wonderful kids. He has been self-employed for 25+ years and is the owner of the Positive Parenting Skills website.

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I had a valuable reminder this week on how best to handle teens, whether they do or do not have child behavior problems. In parenting a range of kids, sometimes crossing from age to age presents itself with unique challenges. It seems my teens get the short end of the stick with letting them become independent. Let me tell you what I mean.

I tell my 10-year old what to do more than ask him what he would do (I know, I know – I am totally working on letting him use his own brain more!). However, this telling thing not only does not work so well with my teens, it actually backfires resulting in anger or defiance for being treated like a “kid”. So this was the reminder.

Don’t tell a teen what to do, ask them “what are you going to do?” Let them talk through the situation and present their solutions. If you find that their choice is less than desirable, you can say “that is one solution, what is another?” James Lehman does say “that would not be my choice, but it is yours and we will see how that works”. All the time resist the urge to tell them the “best” solution because unsolicited advice sounds like criticism to them.

Then after they tried their solution, ask them how it went and what, if anything they would do differently next time. You could even incorporate some practice with helping them identifying their feelings by asking them how it felt going into the solution and how it felt afterwards. This would be a good jumping off point to maybe trying something different next time if it didn’t feel so well.

James Lehman has a no-nonsense but compassionate way about him and he has helped our family to learn to problem solve, and our house to become a calmer, more peaceful place. I totally recommend his Total Transformation Program to anyone that has difficult children they are trying to raise.

About the author: By Julie Hellstrom

Julie is an awesome parent (along with her husband Matt) to five adopted kiddos and the owner of the Positive Parenting Skills website.

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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.

About the author: By Matt Hellstrom

Matt is the parent (along with his wife Julie) to five wonderful kids. He has been self-employed for 25+ years and is the owner of the Positive Parenting Skills website.

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One of the biggest mistakes parents make is to send their Reactive Attachment Disorder child to individual counseling. We went down that road, and it’s not a good thing for them. It actually makes them sicker, not better. But how can that be true? Isn’t counseling good for any emotionally disturbed child? Well, the answer is yes and no.

Individual counseling is bad

We’ve had our RAD daughter in counseling with several different competent counselors over the years. It’s not a good situation for the child. RAD kids need to be in control and one of the ways they do this is to triangulate. Our daughter would triangulate with anyone she met as soon as she met them, trying to get them on her side against her mom. And she was very good at it – mostly by telling lies. What she discovered is that the counselor makes a great person to triangulate with! She would tell them how horrible we were, all the bad things we did to her, on and on. The counselors would feed that because they didn’t know us.

When we started catching on to this, we said to our daughter and the counselor that we would no longer allow her to go to counseling without one of us present. Well, that went over like a lead balloon! In retrospect, we should have just cut it off immediately, but we thought it would be detrimental to our daughter to pull her out right away. As it turned out, it didn’t matter at all – see, she had no emotional tie to that counselor – how could she? We raised her from a baby and she didn’t have emotional ties to us!

The whole thing came to a head when I went to the last session with her and she sat and yelled at me, called me names, retreated into her shell, etc. The counselor looked horrified and when the session got over she asked my daughter to leave so she could talk to me in private. She said that my daughter was in a really bad place and she was very worried. I recognized this as manipulative behavior and I told the counselor this, and predicted she would be just fine as soon as we left. And guess what – I was right! It was at that moment that I realized individual counseling was not a good thing for her.

So what is the answer?

The answer (as far as counseling goes, anyway) is family counseling. Find a good attachment counselor that follows Nancy Thomas’ guidelines and practices, and either go with your whole family, or just the child. The point is, at least one of the parents must be there –preferably the mom! The whole goal of the counselor should be to create a bonded, attached situation between child and mother. Once that happens, the child will turn around 180 degrees. And you’ll have the loving, caring child you’ve always wanted.

Parent’s note:  We are happy to report that our children get healthier every day, thanks to the steps we’ve taken to bond with them. The most important resource we’ve found is When Love Is Not Enough by Nancy Thomas. For parents of children with Reactive Attachment Disorder this is a must have. If there is only one thing you buy, make it this book!

About the author: By Matt Hellstrom

Matt is the parent (along with his wife Julie) to five wonderful kids. He has been self-employed for 25+ years and is the owner of the Positive Parenting Skills website.

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The Total Transformation by James Lehman

If you’ve been looking for Total Transformation Reviews on the internet, you’ve stumbled across the right site. Quite often, the people that review products don’t actually use the product, they’ll just listen to the CD’s or read the book, and write a review based on their feelings whether the product will work or not. This is especially true about parenting courses. Unless you actually have kids to “try it out on”, you won’t know for sure whether it works or not.

So what makes us different? We’ve got five adopted kids, that’s what! With the oldest being 17 and the youngest being 11, we’ve had plenty of opportunities to test many, many different parenting styles, programs, books, courses, etc. Our kids have issues including Reactive Attachment Disorder, ADHD, ADD, Sensory Processing Disorder, Oppositional Defiance Disorder, and more. If you want to learn all about the different disorders that can affect children, all you have to do is adopt five of them!

So what have we discovered? That there are tools and techniques to be gleaned from most of the resources that you try. For Reactive Attachment Disorder kiddos, our favorite is When Love is Not Enough by Nancy Thomas. This is the RAD bible, as far as we’re concerned. If you have RAD kids, you absolutely must get this book!

With all the rest of our children, we’ve found the Total Transformation program by James Lehman to be most helpful. The good thing about the Total Transformation is that it puts many different techniques together in one set of CD’s, DVD’s, and a workbook. If you want to listen to a preview from some of the actual CD’s, click here. You’ll very quickly get an idea what the program is all about.

What are some of the things that have worked for us? Here are 3, just to get you started:

1.       Transition time. This is one of the most important tools we’ve learned, and possibly one of the simplest. The way it works is that when Dad or Mom get home from work, they get 10 minutes of “Transition Time” to read they’re mail, emails, change their clothes, etc. until they’re approached by the kids for requests or problems. It can also work the other way, too – kids get a 10 minute break when they get home from school to “wind down” and relax a bit before they have to do and chores, or are reminded about areas where they need to improve. Here’s a fun video we made showing this technique.

2.      Direct statements. When you want something to happen, be very firm and clear. Say something like “Don’t talk to me that way. I don’t like it”. Then walk away. This is very powerful because you’ve held the child accountable, no matter how he or she reacts.

3.      Be an empowered parent. Unempowered parents are unable to empower their children with the problem-solving skills necessary to be successful. Use whatever social, environmental and legal options you have at your disposal. If your child won’t get up for school, let the school deal with it in the way they would with any other truancy issues, because that’s what it is. Don’t let the kid make it your problem – put it back on them.

These are 3 skills to get you started. There are hundreds more in the Total Transformation program. It’s worked for us, it can work for you too!

About the author: By Matt Hellstrom

Matt is the parent (along with his wife Julie) to five wonderful kids. He has been self-employed for 25+ years and is the owner of the Positive Parenting Skills website.

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One of the questions that quite often gets asked when people come to this website is does Total Transformation really work? They want to know many different individual’s opinions on the program when they don’t have anything to gain or lose from reviewing it.

(Click here to see a sample of the type of training you’ll find on the CD’s and DVD’s in the Total Transformation Program. You actually can click on each CD or DVD to preview that  lesson. Especially take a look at the Jump Start DVD. See if you think this is the kind of information that might help you parent your children.)

I love the Total Transformation program, and use the tools I’ve learned from it every day with my five kids. I’ve tried to be as honest and straightforward with my Total Transformation review as possible, but I also thought it might be useful to give some unbiased opinions from others when asked if the Total Transformation really works?

So I searched the internet and found as many unbiased opinions as I could as to whether Total Transformation really works or not.  So here you go!

Crystal G says:

We just bought it ourselves, got it yesterday. I watched the first disk (Jump Start) and although it kind of played like a long commercial for something I had already bought, there was some good information in there. It gave me hope that this just may help. I think the thing that jumped out at me the most was when he said “You don’t have to attend every argument you are invited to”.

Hey if this program can show me another way of dealing with things and how to deal with things in order to get a different reaction from my child than I am getting now it will have been worth 20 times what it cost… All I know is that it can’t hurt to try a different way since what I am doing now certainly isn’t working.

So, bottom line is I haven’t had it long enough to tell you if it is going to work, but just watching the first DVD gave me hope, which I didn’t have much of before that.

Diane says:

I have used this program. This program is good stay consistent with it. The first day I started putting things in motion my kids hated it. Use words like you had a choice and you choose to do this. And now because you chose this you also chose this punishment. It gives a lot of practice steps etc. I think the older your child is and how far they are gone really needs professional help, but if your children are not severe than this program can work for you.

I want to say that as a parent, you have to be very dedicated to this program and be very consistent. What I did was watched a new video every week and then practiced each level for a couple of weeks before moving on. I would say give it a try.

The program will work if you are dedicated as long as there aren’t other issues as well, my oldest son was too far gone to have it work for me and he is in a juvenile detention center, but my other children it has worked very nice.

Denise Says:

I have the Total Transformation System (bought for me by my well-meaning parents) and while I think it is probably a good system, I have to admit that it was hard for me to get through the audio CDs….they actually put me to sleep! I hope to get through the entire program some day…..

Good luck!

Seasidesu says:

I started using The Total Transformation …. a couple of months ago. What I really like about this program (and there are so many things!) is that it gave me some practical things to do immediately to help stop my son’s obnoxious behavior. Like July said, there’s a series of CDs. It’s helped me understand how my child thinks, how (and WHY) he has these outbursts and some different roles that he and I have both fallen into. It’s definitely helped me implement a more effective parenting style, and his siblings are happy, too!

So there you have few reviews. If you’re willing to work, the program works! Click here to learn more and see if the Total Transformation will really work for you too!

About the author: By Matt Hellstrom

Matt is the parent (along with his wife Julie) to five wonderful kids. He has been self-employed for 25+ years and is the owner of the Positive Parenting Skills website.

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