So why is there such disparity when you look for Total Transformation program reviews on Google or another search engine? Here are a few reasons I came up with:

• Total Transformation by James Lehman is a product that you have to use. Many people get all excited about something because they think it’s going to solve all their problems magically – like a silver bullet or something. That’s just not how it is. Everything takes work and the Total Transformation program is no exception. There is much to learn and practice, and it just doesn’t happen overnight. The whole premise of the program is to teach us as parents to help our children to learn to problem solve, and that’s not an immediate fix. Yes, there are some techniques in there that help you to stop arguments quickly and easily, and to change some of the unwanted behaviors pretty fast, but if you really want a lasting change, you’re going to have to work at it.
• It’s not for some kids. The Total Transformation program is designed for difficult, challenging children – ones that might have special needs like ODD, ADD, ADHD, Asperger’s, etc. These children are abusive and out of control and if you’ve got those kinds of kids this program is going to help. If you’ve got normal kids that are just a little obnoxious once in a while (as all kids are!) you’re not going to need this system and I wouldn’t suggest buying it.
• Both parents aren’t on board. When training your kids to problem solve, you’re going to want to be a unified front, so they can’t work one of you against the other. If one of the parents doesn’t believe in the product or think that there’s a problem, it’s going to be much less effective.

Those are three reasons why you might see negative Total Transformation reviews when you go searching the web. If you want to read my review, click here. We’ve got five challenging kids, we’ve worked hard on the techniques the program teaches, and both of us are on board. And it’s worked for us.

Want more information on the Total Transformation program? Click here for a page of testimonials and reviews for many others that have used the product.

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!

(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!

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!

(Click here to see what the people behind Total Transformation have to say about this scam question.)

The main thing I’ve noticed about these sites is that the writers have usually not had any experience using the products, nor have they actually even listened to the CD’s to review the product. They just feel that since it’s sold on the radio and on the internet, it must be a scam. In my opinion, this is just wrong.

If you really want to find out if Total Transformation is a scam, wouldn’t the best thing to do be see what people who have actually used the product have to say about it? I think that’s the best way, rather than take people’s word for it that don’t know anything about it.

My wife and I are parents of five adopted kids and we’ve had behavioral problems with them since day one. It’s been an enjoyable, but difficult journey raising these guys. At one point we were really struggling, and our neighbor turned us on to the Total Transformation. She let us listen to her CD’s, and we really liked what we heard. We started using the techniques, and they worked! Not magic-bullet worked, but with patience and perseverance, they paid off. To read a full review of our experience, click here.

I also looked around the web and found some independent comments by other people that have used the product, and I posted them here.

Lastly, Total Transformation has a page of reviews that people who have used the product have written. To access this page, click here. As you can see, anyone that’s used the product can post their review.

So make up your own mind – believe someone who has never even looked at the Total Transformation product, or people that have used it themselves. Click here to learn more about the Total Transformation.

by James Lehman, MSW

Many parents write in to Empowering Parents and ask, “Is it too late to change the way I parent my child—and will it actually work if I do?” In this article, James Lehman explains how you can change the way you parent, and why your child’s behavior has a much better chance of improving when you do. James gives you 7 ways to be a more effective parent, starting today.

Work on the behavior you want to change most—then, move on to the next one. Don’t try to tackle everything at once.

Some parents are afraid that their child won’t change no matter what they do. Many find themselves reacting automatically when their child behaves inappropriately; as soon as he acts out, they’re yelling and screaming, or getting sucked into power struggles. And even when parents try something new, it’s easy for them to get discouraged. Some try to do different things from time to time, but when these methods seem to be ineffective, they eventually give up. This is true especially if the behavior has been a problem for years and they haven’t been able to do anything about it.

I’ve found that if you don’t really take the time to think your response through, you often wind up simply reacting to the things your children do—and not responding effectively. Many parents become frustrated with their child’s behavior and want to give a punishment right away. Unfortunately, doing this doesn’t provide any effective training to the child; in the end, it’s just not helpful. There’s a big difference between the words “react” and “respond.” When you react, it’s almost like a reflex—your buttons are pushed, and you go into your routine. But if you’re responding, you’re being more objective. You’re still going to hold your child accountable, but you have more time to consider the consequence you’ll give him and what you want him to learn from it—and there’s less of a chance you’ll take your child’s behavior personally.

To anyone who asks the question, “Is it too late to change my parenting style?” I would say that it’s never too late. It may not always be easy, but there are effective things you can start doing right away to change the way you respond—and to improve your child’s behavior.

7 Ways to Start Parenting More Effectively

1. Decide What You Want to Work on First: One of the things I see with parents is that they don’t know where to start. But I think it’s simple: start with the things that put your child at risk. These are the behaviors that are physically or emotionally dangerous to your child or others—where he is hurting somebody physically, breaking things, or being unsafe outside of the home.

My experience is that if you want to change everything at once, you’re going to be very disappointed. Not only is that an impossible task; you’re going to alienate your child. I also think parents should address the things that violate their values and morals, and that are risky to the child and others. Start there. Do we want to change everything? Well, good luck, maybe we can. But I think we want to start with the most dangerous, risky stuff, and then move forward.

2. Pinpoint Exactly What You Want to Change: I think it’s helpful for parents to break behaviors down into separate pieces and work on them one at a time. So if your child curses at you and storms up to his room and slams the door, start with the behavior you want to change most. When you talk with him, you want to break it down. Begin with, “Don’t curse. That doesn’t help solve the problem, and I’m offended by it. What do you think you could do differently the next time you get upset?” Your child may not be able to come up with anything, but offer some suggestions and get him to pick one option. And then say, “All right, so the next time you’re upset, instead of cursing, you’ll just go to your room.”

So work on the behavior you want to change most—then, move on to the next one. Don’t try to tackle everything at once.

3. Explain the Change: If you’re going to change a specific response to a behavior, it might be helpful to sit down with your child and explain what that change is going to be. When things are going well and everybody is calm, you can say, “Oh, by the way, I wanted to tell you something. I don’t think being grounded in your room all day when you use bad language is working around here. It doesn’t seem to be helping you to change. So from now on when you curse, you’re going to go into your room until you write a letter of apology. Then, when you’re done with that letter, you can read it to me and we’ll talk about it. While you’re in your room, I’m going to take your computer and cell phone away to make sure you stay on target.” Be clear on what you’re going to do. Your child may get angry and frustrated, but don’t let him turn it into an argument. Say, “I understand that it might be frustrating, but this is how I want our family to work.”

I also suggest that you don’t make speeches, but keep your remarks specific and focused. Remember, speeches cut down on communication.

4. Tell Your Child What the Goal Is: I think it’s important to define your goals to your child. You can say something like, “My goal is that you don’t hurt other people by saying bad words.” Or “My goal is that you don’t steal money out of my wallet,” or “My goal is that you don’t punch the wall,” or “My goal is that you don’t throw sand in kids’ faces or bite them when you’re playing in the sandbox.” You can start out the conversation by saying, “I’ve noticed that when somebody teases you a little, you get really upset and you get yourself into trouble. I hate to see that, because then you get punished—and it happens all over again the next day. So from now on, let’s figure out a way for you to handle this differently so that you don’t get into trouble. When someone teases you, what can you do instead?” And come up with a game plan of what he might do next time.

It’s important to realize that what comes out of your mouth doesn’t always get into your child’s ear the way you want it to. And so even if your child is confused when you talk with him—he may be frustrated, worried, or angry—just try to stay calm. Whatever it is, say, “Let’s just see how it works out first.” Your child doesn’t have to agree; it’s not a democracy. But it’s a way of approaching problems that, over time, will change his perceptions of his relationship with authority—and his relationship with you.

5. Manage Opportunity: If you’re concerned that your child is going to do something hurtful or destructive, one of your options is to manage the opportunities he has. Let’s say you have a teenager who continuously gets speeding tickets. He doesn’t respond to your efforts to get him to take responsibility and drive more safely. One of the things you can do is take away his car. When you do that, you’re taking away the opportunity. It’s similar with younger kids. If they demonstrate that they won’t stop stealing money out of your wallet, take away the opportunity by putting a lock on your door or locking your purse in the trunk of your car. Opportunity management is one of the simplest ways of shaping behavior. In other words, if your daughter can’t handle the mall without throwing tantrums, don’t take her to the mall. If your son is at a restaurant and he can’t stop acting out, take him out of the restaurant. Once your child demonstrates that he can’t handle something, remove the opportunity until he shows you that he can. Often, if your child doesn’t have the opportunity to do something, it won’t happen.

6. Don’t Appeal to Your Child’s Empathy: Asking your child, “Do you know how it feels when you’re disrespectful to me?” or asking, “How do you think Tommy feels when you take his lunch money?” are appeals to your child’s empathy. But children, and especially teenagers, don’t experience much empathy for anybody. They are simply not in touch with those feelings. The apparatus that manages empathy in the mind is not working properly yet; some say it isn’t fully formed. Regardless of the reasons, empathy is not an approach that will convince your child of anything. Consequently, they don’t experience empathy for everyday situations, so you can’t depend on that tactic to change their behavior. Instead, you have to work with their self-interest. If you want your child to change something, you have to demonstrate that he will benefit from changing; that it’s in his self-interest. If you want your child to stop lying or manipulating, you have to frame it in a way so he can see how he would benefit from stopping that behavior. It’s not helpful to say “Can’t you see how much your manipulating hurts me?” Instead, say, “Aren’t you sick of getting grounded for manipulating? You’re the one who gets hurt when you manipulate. Remember, Josh, the consequences won’t stop until the manipulation stops. So stop doing this to yourself.”

7. Set Limits and Give Consequences: I think an important component of teaching our kids is learning how to set limits on them. There’s an old saying: “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” But I say, “You can lead a horse to water and you can’t make him drink—but you can make him thirsty.” That’s what your consequences should be designed to do. Accordingly, we can’t make our child change. But if we use the right combination of consequences and motivation, we can, in a sense, make them thirsty to change.

Remember, consequences are a means to an end. And if you find an effective consequence, continue to use it. By “effective” I mean that your child responds to it, even if only for a short while. It’s not always helpful to immediately go for a bigger hammer if the consequence doesn’t appear to be working. You should always have a bigger hammer in your toolbox, but escalate slowly.

Here’s the deal: someday your child is going to change—if not for you, then for his boss, a judge, his probation officer, or his girlfriend. Hopefully he’ll change before he engages in too much self-destruction. In any case, you’re on duty now, it’s your watch, so just do the best you can.

So how do you know if you should change your parenting style? I believe that you have to change the way you parent if what you’ve been doing up until now has proven ineffective. There’s information regarding learning effective parenting styles, giving effective consequences, and ways to have conversations with your child that promote change and don’t create excuses. Do your best to access that information, both here on Empowering Parents and in other trusted places.

And remember: It’s never too late.

James Lehman is a behavioral therapist and the creator of The Total Transformation Program for parents. He has worked with troubled teens and children for three decades. James holds a Masters Degree in Social Work from Boston University. For more information, visit www.thetotaltransformation.com.

Here’s my opinion on whether Total Transformation by James Lehman is a scam.

(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 you’d get if this program was a scam.)

Total Transformation is designed to help you change as a parent in the way you parent your children. It gives you skills that you didn’t have before to help your child learn to problem solve, therefore keeping them from acting out in anger, violence, and disobedience. James Lehman, the creator of Total Transformation, says that the main reason kids act out is that they don’t have problem solving skills. Total Transformation is designed to show parents how to give their kids those skills.

Some of these techniques are foreign to parents – after all, if they knew them they wouldn’t have out-of-control, defiant kids. Since they are new skills, it will take the parents a while to learn how to use them, and the kids might react negatively at first. It’s a learning process, and it’s definitely not a silver bullet, where everything is going to be fixed immediately.

I think that what happens sometimes (not always, of course) is that parents try a couple of the ideas, but don’t become consistent with them, and they don’t see a big change right away. After all, it took the kids a long time to get to the point where they are, they’re not going to learn and embrace the problem solving skills right away. Plus, what they’re doing is working for them – they’re kind of in control of the household, right? So they’re not going to go quietly into that good night.

I also think that some parents expect a “magic solution” to their parenting problems, and that just doesn’t exist. The Total Transformation is a program that gives you many, many techniques, tools, and skills to help you be a better parent, and to help you teach your kids to problem solve so they can grow up to be healthy adults. It’s not a quick fix, and since it’s not there are people that consider that a scam.

Now, go read my Total Transformation review and get an idea of what worked (and continues to work) for me. Then, browse around this site and get a feel for the kind of tips you’re going to get from the program. You can also see hundreds of reviews from people that actually have used Total Transformation by clicking here. After you feel confident that the Total Transformation is not a scam, click here to learn more about the program itself.

By the way, James Lehman feels so confident in the Total Transformation program, that he gives you a chance to get  it free. Just order the program and  complete and return the enclosed Feedback Survey.  You can be the judge of whether Total Transformation is a scam or not. One thing I can tell you for sure - don’t buy the Total Transformation if you aren’t open to changing your parenting style, and willing to put in some effort. It’s not going to work – I can guarantee that!

You get a chance to get settled in, put your briefcase or books down, maybe have a snack or check your email. Then, after 10 minutes of so you can take on the cares of the house. I can tell you, this tool has done wonders for our house, as has many of the others he suggests.

Here’s a fun video we created to illustrate how this works. Enjoy!

Want to learn more ways to have peace in your house? Check out Total Transformation today!

It is hard to set reasonable rules for our family. And even harder when I try to enforce them that I meet the “master negotiator”. You know what I am talking about, the kid who likes to put his toe over the line. Wants to just see where you will budge. It is the hardest to not give in too.

I like to not always be a “no” mom, so I want to try to find places where I can say yes. But I have found this is not normally a good area to do this. Why? Because this tells the child that your rules are not firm. And I know when I have caved because I get this helpless, I am not in control feeling.

Now I am not talking about general things, like “can I put my socks in the dirty clothes after I save off this video game?”, but more about, “can I stay out 15 extra minutes tonight?”. Which will turn into 20 tomorrow and on and on. So I have to pick which rules I will not negotiate and stick to them.

Then I look for other areas that give me the “yes” mom happiness that I want. It turns into a win-win situation because the child knows your no means no and that creates security for him.

For many more tips and techniques on how to not be a negotiator, 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 Total Transformation workbook is 118 pages, and it starts out explaining a little about the program, and a little about James Lehman who came up with it. Right away after that it starts the training – it suggests you watch the Jump Start DVD, then you’re instructed to answer some questions about your child. These questions are designed to help you identify the behaviors that your kid needs help with.

Next, you’re supposed to go to lesson one in the workbook, and taking a pre-test to lesson one. After you take the test, you listen to CD #1 and then go through the exercises and/or additional information in the workbook. After lesson one in the workbook, there is a post-test, exactly the same as the pre-test, for you to take and see if your answers changed. The post-test isn’t in every chapter, but the pre-test is.

A few of examples of the true/false questions he asks in the workbook pre-test and post-test are:

1. Children act disrespectfully or destructively because they’ve lost control of themselves.
2. Parents have to work harder to understand a child who is behaving inappropriately.
3. Out-of-control behavior is a sign of mental illness.
4. Kids need to see something as “fair” in order for them to take it seriously.

The answers to the above questions? 1: False 2: True 3: False 4: False

Did you get them all right? When I first took the test I only got 3 out of 10 right! Here’s what’s neat, though - it’s never too late to get started with this program. All of my kids, including my 15 year old, have improved behaviors from the techniques I’m now using.

The Total Transformation workbook goes through each CD in a similar fashion – recap, training, special words from Mr. Lehman, and tests. It’s really good, and easy to do. He suggests you take it one CD per week, and work on one, two, ten, or all of the techniques suggested. I agree – there is a lot in there, and you don’t want to overwhelm yourself.

Next post – the Jump Start DVD.