Mr. Lehman’s assertion is that kids don’t know how to problem-solve, and that’s why they act out in inappropriate ways. It’s a coping mechanism they’ve developed to force someone else to solve the problem at hand for them. What he does with The Total Transformation Program is help us parents give our kiddos the tools they need to solve their problems. The tools that promote responsibility taking and accountability.

Here are three of these techniques that can give you a firm idea of how simplistic and realistic these tools are in turning things around and quickly.

1. Make direct statements. Tell them what you want , firmly and clearly, then walk away. Don’t be afraid of appearing powerless. You’ve made your child accountable for his actions, and to him that’s powerful.
2. Disconnect. 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.
3. Make the consequences task-oriented and time-limited. Use, as often as possible, consequences that are directly connected to the problem behavior, e.g. “you cannot use the phone until you finish your homework tonight”. Remember your child cannot be punished into acceptable behavior. They should be short term, not a prison term.

Lastly, don’t hold your breath!  Their problem-solving skills will develop. However, change and gratitude don’t come overnight. Later on, blame will be replaced with thanks, but it might be a while in coming.

A few good reminders – Don’t let what the child says or does in response to your actions change your way of handling the problems. Consistency is a huge benefit in parenting.  And don’t be too hard on yourself if you slip up. Remember this is also retraining a lot of our parenting behaviors too. One thing is for sure, you will get another chance to practice these techniques!

As you browse around this site, we hope you’ll find some effective parenting skills that will work for your family. As far as our family goes, we believe  The Total Transformation Program is the one tool that’s had the biggest impact on our household, but you need to find out for yourself. Click here to get it free for a limited time. All you have to do is order it, then complete and return the enclosed Feedback survey. 

You might be wondering if I’m making money by promoting this program, and the answer is yes! If you buy it after visiting my website, I will earn a commission.  The truth is, I tried it and liked it so much, that I decided it would be something I would feel proud to support and promote, and as a bonus, I get a commission if you buy it.

I’ve recently learned a trick on how to prevent stress. It’s simple and it works! Being a parent of a teenager is inherently stressful – I think the words teenager and stress are actually synonyms – and any way you can figure out how to prevent stress while dealing with them is a huge help.

One of the best ways I know on how to prevent stress is to get centered. What does that mean? It means different things for different people. Everyone has different ways to get centered, and as soon as you can figure out what your way or ways are, you can start implementing this stress reducing technique.

Why do we have stress?

The main reason we have stress, in my opinion, is that our lives, or portions of our lives, are out-of-control. Finances, health, kids, time – these are all areas that can easily get overwhelming and quickly can get out-of-control. This is a complex, fast-paced, stress-filled world we live in, and there’s really no way around that unless you live by yourself on a desert island. I know I don’t have that luxury.

So how to we reduce our stress?

In my opinion, you can’t reduce the stress. But you can learn to handle it. One way to do this is to get centered.

What does it mean to get centered?

Getting centered means figuring out something that you can do that will give you a sense of control in your life, even if it’s in a tiny way. It might not even be anything that needs controlling, but it has to be something you can control. So even if you can’t control any or all of the big things, if you can control something small, it can do wonders for your overall stress level.

How do you get centered?

Figure out something that’s relaxing or soothing for you, and that gives you a sense of accomplishment when you get done. I have a couple of things I do to get centered – the main one is to mow the lawn. Now I know, most guys my age can hardly wait for their kids to get old enough to hand that job over to them, but as far as I’m concerned, they’ll never learn how to do it! Believe me, they’re not too bummed – they don’t get centered the same way I do. Anyway, I just love the feeling and the satisfaction of seeing that freshly mowed and edged lawn, with hardly a blade of grass out of place. It gets me centered.

Another technique of mine is making the bed. It’s my wife this time that doesn’t mind this quirk of mine. I love the look of a smooth, tightly made bed with the sheets and blankets tucked in perfectly. Ahhhh!

Julie’s method of how to prevent stress? To clean the sliding glass door. When she’s feeling out-of-control, she almost runs for the Windex and paper towels, and gets that baby so clean you could eat off of it. It’s her way of getting centered.

Separate those paper clips!

I heard about a CEO of a major corporation that get’s centered by separating small paper clips from large ones. When his assistant told him they could have someone else to that, he almost ripped the container of mixed-up paper clips out of his hand! Nope, that was his job, thank-you very much!

So there you go. Is your life out-of-control? Well, figure out what gets you centered, and you’re well on your way to figuring out how to prevent stress.

As you browse around this site, we hope you’ll find some effective parenting skills that will work for your family. As far as our family goes, we believe  The Total Transformation Program is the one tool that’s had the biggest impact on our household, but you need to find out for yourself. Click here to get it for free. All you have to do is order it, then complete and return the enclosed Feedback survey.

You might be wondering if I’m making money by promoting this program, and the answer is yes! If you buy it after visiting my website, I will earn a commission.  The truth is, I tried it and liked it so much, that I decided it would be something I would feel proud to support and promote, and as a bonus, I get a commission if you buy it.

Matt & I decided to get into a program titled “Family Strengthening” provided by Washington State University (go Cougs!). Its focus is for kids age 10-14 and their parents. Since we have 3 (and one in crisis) in that age group, any help we could get we are taking. And the free part was added incentive.

We were skeptical on whether there would be anything we could use in our unique family. And our teens were less enthusiastic than that, to say the least! However, the very first week we learned something that has changed how we view our teens’ actions. Their brains are going through the same transition as it did when they were 2 years old – so we weren’t being mean when we said “you are acting just like a 2 year old”!

Let me see if I can explain. The parts of the brain that are developing , the generative part, interacts with the emotions and quickly overwhelms the frontal lobes – which possess  thoughtful, rational and conscience driven restraints  on behavior. The twist on all this is that the frontal lobes do not fully mature until early 20s. So guess what? Parents have no other option but to be their teens’ frontal lobes for a time. Whether you or your teens like it or not.

The good news is that this (as is all parenting) IS a gradual letting go as they and their brains mature. With most kiddos, this will be a learning from their mistakes experience. For my girl, it will involve that and learning skills that will help her stay safe because that development is hopefully only delayed. We have seen some progress with these skills, like calling us when she feels in over her head and can’t see a way out. We parents, the frontal lobes, will provide one.

So on we march on in this journey. With a few more tools in our bag.

As you browse around this site, we hope you’ll find some effective parenting skills that will work for your family. As far as our family goes, we believe  The Total Transformation Program is the one tool that’s had the biggest impact on our household, but you need to find out for yourself. Click here to try it free. For a limited time, you just order it and complete and return the enclosed Feedback Survey.

You might be wondering if I’m making money by promoting this program, and the answer is yes! If you buy it after visiting my website, I will earn a commission.  The truth is, I tried it and liked it so much, that I decided it would be something I would feel proud to support and promote, and as a bonus, I get a commission if you buy it.

Mexican Train Dominos is a great game that we’ve recently been introduced to, but we found the rules in the game we bought to be a little confusing.

These are the Mexican Train Domino rules we learned to play that seems to best suit our younger kiddos.

The dominos themselves are different than regular dominos because they go up to double 12’s. One cool thing is that if counting dots is hard for your little ones, you can buy these dominos that have numbers instead of dots. The game go basically like this – each person takes a number of tiles based on how many are playing. Then starting with the double 12 tile (or the closest double someone has in their pile) it is placed in the middle. Every round goes down 1 number. Everyone then must start their leg (think spider here) with the same number that was the double. If you don’t have that number on your tiles, you pick one from the bone pile. If you can play you do, if not the next person plays. You then only play on your leg until 1 of 2 things happen.

1st – If someone, who has their leg going, cannot play a domino on their leg after they pick from the bone pile, you can play on their leg. They place a plastic train (that comes with most domino sets) on their leg so everyone knows it is open to play on. As an added treat – we use M&M’s instead of train. Then when the person whose leg is open can play on it again, they can chose to remove the train (or eat the M&M!) to close it off from other players.

2nd – You can start a Mexican train. You do this by using a tile that has the same number as the doubles you started with and starting a leg separate from the main game. Only one person can start a train per round but anyone can play on it at anytime.

A few nuances – if you play a doubles tile during the round (like 3’s), the doubles tile must be “satisfied” before regular play can continue. How this is accomplished is that either the person who plays the doubles tile must play another tile with the same number or it goes around the table for each person’s turn until someone can satisfy it. You must draw if you can’t play. You can however play the drawn tile if it matches. This can mess up the best laid plans! Also, it is not uncommon for someone to get stuck for the whole round without getting their leg started. The upside here is if you play rounds down to double 1’s, this evens out.

The winner of the round is the one who gets rid of all his tiles first. Everyone else has to add up all their dots (only area little ones may need help) on all their tiles. This is their score for that round. Winner of the game is the person with the lowest score.

Mexican Train Dominos. Easy dominos rules and a fun family game! Great for family Christmas gifts!

As you browse around this site, we hope you’ll find some effective parenting skills that will work for your family. As far as our family goes, we believe  The Total Transformation Program is the one tool that’s had the biggest impact on our household, but you need to find out for yourself. Click here to try it free for 30 days, and if you decide to keep it only then will you  have to pay for it.

When I was growing up, one of my most favorite things was family game night. We would all sit down around our kitchen table, fill up our ice cream float cups and play a mean game of Hearts.

Even back then, when life wasn’t near as hectic as it is now, it seemed to draw us back together as a family. So of course, as we started raising our children, my husband and I decided we wanted to have this special family time too.

The problem we soon found was how to find games that everyone could play. With an age span of 7 years, our 15 year old was not so keen in playing Go Fish all the time, nor could our 8 year old play Risk. How do we solve this dilemma?

Some Great Answers

You knew I had some answers, right? First off, a game we were introduced to this summer on our family vacation was a fun family game called
Mexican Train Dominos. It was fun, several people could play at one time (which is good in a family of 7) and the dominos rules were easy to learn and follow. One note – the rules that came with our game were different than how we learned how to play. Our rules are in the next post.

Apples to Apples (which does come in a Junior version) is fun and easy for everyone to play because the winning card is subjective to the judge’s opinion – read no right or wrong answer here.

Blokus is a great colored tile game that is easy for everyone to play. The cool thing about this game is that no matter your age it really works to exercise your critical thinking skills. It is fun to watch how smart your kiddos really are!

These are great Christmas gift ideas and birthday present ideas because they are inexpensive and they don’t involve technology. Which means more time to talk and laugh together! What good Christmas gifts!

 As you browse around this site, we hope you’ll find some effective parenting skills that will work for your family. As far as our family goes, we believe  The Total Transformation Program is the one tool that’s had the biggest impact on our household, but you need to find out for yourself. Click here to try it free for 30 days, and if you decide to keep it only then will you  have to pay for it.