Have you ever gone to bed on a bad note? You know, not used your best parenting skills at bedtime, maybe? Remember how yucky you feel about yourself? Well guess what? Our kids feel bad about themselves too if they end the day on a sour note. So what can we do that would be positive for all?
I use the thinking that “tomorrow is another day”. What does that mean you ask? It simply means leave no business unfinished (as much as is possible) each day. There are lots of words of wisdom that support this – “don’t put off tomorrow what you can do today”, “don’t let the sun go down on your anger”, and my favorite – “God’s mercies are new every day”.
Putting feet to this idea is fairly basic. I can probably best explain it by giving examples:
- You go to put your kiddo to bed and toys litter their bedroom floor. Instead of giving them a lecture on what are the rules and shutting off the light as you stomp out of the room, have them get up and pick them up and then come get you when they are done. Then, you can pleasantly tuck them in.
- Or you just realized they did not finish their homework as they had said they did. Not a problem! They can answer to their teacher tomorrow and let her dish out the consequences. (It is ultimately between the teacher and your child anyway.) Kisses and hugs, good night!
There you go – finish all your business (if at all possible) and everyone sleeps better and you both get to start the next day with a clean slate. A win-win!
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.
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!
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!
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