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.
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!
One of the questions every parent asks when their children become teens (and start acting like teens) is “is this normal teen behavior or are they out of control kids?” So the best place to start to answer this question would be to determine a basic list of “normal” behaviors.
“Normal”
- Acting moody and secretive
- Spending a lot their time alone in their bedroom.
- Easily frustrated, short-tempered, impatient (esp. with parents)
- Door slamming and stomping up/down stairs
- Separating from family activities
- Saying things that seem mean like “Only my friends know what I mean. I hate you. I can’t wait until I can move out!”
- Seem unsatisfied and restless.
Though you may not like to hear these unkind and seemingly uncivil things, it is one of the normal ways teens separate from their parents to become their own person. The following are the “not so normal” list.
“Not So Normal”
- Any kind of physical or verbal abuse, including threats or intimidation, to others
- Abusing younger children including siblings
- Any lawbreaking activities, including getting arrested
- Coming home drunk or high on drugs
- Staying out all night
This is definitely not okay behavior and the sooner you tell your teen this out of control behavior is not acceptable the better off your life and theirs will be. Letting them continue this behavior will have dire consequences as adults.
But just telling them is not the solution. The issue here is their problem solving capabilities. They don’t know how to make friends or communicate in a way that gets their needs met, so they use drugs and alcohol and inappropriate behavior to meet their needs instead. Once you recognize this, you are able to equip them with the tools they need to be able to handle life and growing up in a positive, healthy way.
So what are tools out of control kids need and how do you teach them? Check out The Total Transformation to give you many great tips. 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!
Do you have a child behavior problem around your house? The truth is good behavior is a skill that can be learned, just like teaching, sewing, driving a car. I believe there are three important tools that our children are not born with and need to learn as a foundation for good behavior. These are: reading a social situation, managing emotions, and solving problems appropriately.
#1: Reading Social Situations
You and I both do this as adults. You walk into a room and assess the situation. Who is here, where are they sitting, what is the look on peoples’ faces, what is their posture, etc? Well our self-centered little ones normally barge in to a situation like a full force hurricane. Even the shy ones keep their heads down and don’t look around. So teaching them to read the situation helps them to determine if this is a good place to be. For example, if several kids are surrounding one child who looks scared, this is not a place to be. Or even if they are told to leave from a group of kids, it is best to do so as this is evidently a hostile environment.
#2: Managing Emotions:
Start by not asking “How did you feel?” but “What was going on?” Ask the right questions when a situation, like hitting, appears.
Then give a consequence for that situation. Now I don’t think people change simply because they’re punished or are given consequences. Consequences alone are not enough to change the child behavior problem. It must be coupled with the learning process associated with the consequences to change a child’s behavior. The problem is actually not the behavior—the problem lies in the way kids think. This faulty thinking then gets externalized into how they behave.
And then talk to your child about what he can do differently the next time he feels angry or frustrated. This can even be like role playing. And it gives them an arsenal ahead of time to use.
Skill #3: Teach Problem Solving Skills
There really is not a good or bad child. There are children who know how to problem solve and those who don’t. So teaching them how to solve the problem is the key. If you do not teach your children appropriately how to solve problems, they will resort to what they know – hitting, yelling, hurting others (like a 2 year old). And this won’t work so well when they are adults in the work world.
And if they can get these tools down as children, their adult ‘tool belt’ will be much better equipped for a successful life. For more tools to help your child behavior problem, 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!
A new added definition for tough love has taken form in our household. My 16 year old daughter has always danced to her own music. So when she asked and asked to have a nose piercing, it was no great surprise. We had been saying no to tattoos and piercing for over 4 years. However, what did surprise me was her dad said yes. You see, he told me, we have to pick our fights carefully.
We have started looking for ways not to fight with kids and to avoid power struggles. We have known our whole parenting career that our place was teach them to become independent, successful adults. And letting them go as they grow. This looks like letting kids make decisions on things we maybe didn’t like but could live with. James Lehman, MSW has a good word picture. “If you picture decision–making as a room, imagine that in the middle of the room are all the “soft” decisions—including what kind of music your child likes, what kind of clothes your son wears, who your daughter’s favorite movie star is. The walls of the room are the hard decisions around things like health, safety and academic performance.” So the “soft” decisions are ones we may not like but can live with.
However, our daughter starts pushing on the walls, we must stand and fight. We state the rules very clearly: “No, you can’t use drugs or drink or stay out all night.” And we stand firm on these house rules for all our kiddos. Things like drugs and alcohol, shoplifting, damaging people’s property and assault are easy to define—these types of behavior are very black and white. And there are laws to prove it.
We also stand on some of the “soft” issues if there is a moral problem with it. Like modesty in clothing or if their choice in music is offensive or violent. We do say “You don’t have a right to listen to this music in my house,” and have found many parents do say that. But we have to make our family’s values and positions very, very clear so that when she looks to find solid ground later, she’ll know where to look.
We know our daughter may not do the things we want her to do—and she may do things we don’t want her to do. We also know we want to keep the lines of communication open either way. And have ultimately found that in choosing our battles, saying yes or using tough love, things are calmer around here and she is talking to us more and more kindly!
For many more tips and techniques to deal with tough love and choosing your battles, 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!
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