As parents, we are so often looking at techniques for child behavior modification. Your kid doesn’t do what you want him to do, or he does what you don’t want him to, and you want to change him. That’s what I think of when I think of a child behavior modification plan or technique.

So what do we do? Here are a few things that have worked for me, maybe you’ll be able to bring about a change in your child’s behavior, too!

1. You have to make your “no” means “no”. This means, if you say “no” to something, stick to it. Even if you wish you hadn’t said no in the first place, you still have to stick to your original no. I find myself just automatically saying “no” sometimes, kind of a knee-jerk reaction. So I’ve lately made an effort to think before I say “no”, and try to say “yes” as much as possible. But, if you do say “no”, don’t waffle – stick to it!
2. Don’t let them turn you around. The best thing you can do when your child is arguing your rules or consequence is to say “No, I’m not going to discuss this any further” and turn around and walk away. Don’t reply if they continue to badger you – just keep walking. Kids need a reasonable amount of explanation, but when you’ve given them that you don’t owe them anything else. Besides, when they continue badgering you, they don’t want to hear your explanation, they just want to change your mind.
3. Over-stimulated? Give them a break. One thing I’ve noticed about my kids is that when they get over-stimulated, it’s almost impossible to talk to them. They won’t look me in the eye, they just continue to misbehave and escalate. What you need to do in this instance is to take them to their room and have a little seat or place for them to cool down and recover from the over-stimulation. Then, after about five minutes you go in and talk to them simply and firmly about what the boundaries and/or expectations are. And ask them if they can do it. If they can, you can let them out of the room. If not, give them a few more minutes in there.

If you’re having problems changing your child’s behavior, try these three ideas and I’m certain you’ll see some major improvement fast! Remember, you’re the boss, and you have to let them know that from the start.

I can hear you saying, “That all sounds great, but can I do it?” How can I get us there?

Don’t lose hope yet, there is help out there. And yes you can do it!

Get some great workable ideas. Click here to get going today! You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Well, I can’t deny it any longer, I have a child with reactive attachment disorder, or RAD.  It’s a roll of the dice when you adopt, even as infants which mine all were. The reality of the situation is that they all present attachment issues to some degree. This one seems to be the most severly affected (at this point!). He has hit puberty and his attachment issues have come screaming out. Conscience is sorely missing and lying and sneaking abound.

I figured this out because, by the recommendation of my friend and our family therapist, I started watching some videos on attachment disorder. I think for the first 2 videos, I couldn’t shut my gaping mouth. It was describing him to a T. Here I was thinking “why don’t consequences change this kiddo’s behavior?” and “nothing seems important enough to him that can move him from what he wants to do”. Right on both counts, I discovered. In fact, there was a chart that showed just where his level of conscience was.

Ages 1 – 3: Takes what he see and wants.

Ages 3 -5: Doesn’t take what he sees and wants for fear of being killed by mom/dad.

Ages 5 – 9: Doesn’t take what he sees and wants thinking mom/dad may be upset.

Ages 9 – 11: Doesn’t take what he sees and wants because he wouldn’t like the way that would make him feel about himself.

Oh wow – we are in stage 1-3!

I can’t watch these videos fast enough! Many of the parenting skills I’ve learned up to now are just not working. So I am taking it one piece at a time. Today I learned that until this kid feels safer and is sure he can trust us, we are in for one mighty power and control struggle.

I am starting off with 2 things I learned: Never tell him “I NEED you to do something”. He’ll just think “Oh you mean I have power over your needs? Cool!!” What you have to say is “I WANT you to do something”.

Secondly, when he has his meltdown because he can’t do something (like master something which for him is usually fear of failure so he doesn’t try), I am going to say “Yes you can – I have faith in you”. This also is when he says he can’t handle his consequences, too.

So far that’s all I’ve got! So, keeping the humor up, I will keep plugging away. He’s worth it!

By the way, the videos are part of a DVD series called When Love Is Not Enough by Nancy Thomas. Take a look at the video series or the book if you’ve got adopted kiddos like me.

by James Lehman, MSW

If yelling worked, parenting would be easy, wouldn’t it? We’d simply shout, “Do it!” and our kids would comply. But here’s the truth: it doesn’t work. I’ve told parents, “Look, if screaming at our kids was effective, I’d be out of business. You’d just be able to yell at your child and he’d change. Or you’d bring your child to my office, I’d shout at him and call him names for 45 minutes, and then he’d go home and be nice for a week.”

“…Yelling turns you into your child’s emotional equal.”

When a parent tells me they’re yelling to get their child’s attention, I understand—I’m a father myself and I’ve worked with parents and kids all my life. Let’s face it, it can be frustrating being a parent, and it can be frustrating being a child. Personally, I believe people end up screaming at their kids because they’ve simply run out of other ways to solve the problem. Instead, they rely on power to get the job done. And that works—as long as the other person is weaker than you. But realize that once your child learns to yell back, your shouting will have no effect. And make no mistake, those skills are harder for kids to unlearn than they are to learn.

In my opinion, no parent should get in a screaming match with their child; it gives kids too much power. It also does not help you with the problem at hand, whether it’s getting your child to take out the trash, stop playing video games, or to come home on time. The other danger is that yelling turns you into your child’s emotional equal. When you’re out of control, they know it—and for the time you’re in that fight with them, your authority is undermined.

The 3 Things Your Child Learns from Yelling:

There are two ways people shut down emotionally during an argument: they either stop paying attention and reject what they’re hearing, or they start yelling back. When people yell, usually they are not feeling anything but anger, hostility or frustration. And during a screaming match, certainly no one is doing much—if any—listening.

Why Shouting Leads to Escalation—and Over-the-Top Consequences

I’ve talked with many parents who think: “If I yell at my child, he’ll stop his inappropriate behavior. I’ll overpower him.” Parents simply want their kids to do what they ask, and sometimes yelling seems to be the most effective alternative. But here’s the rub: it doesn’t teach your child coping or problem solving skills. It doesn’t get him to understand the relationship between responsibility and accountability. All it says is, “I’m bigger than you and I’m louder than you and you’re going to do what I say.” But after awhile, kids stop listening. By the time a child is ten years old, you hear parents saying things like, “You’re grounded for a month,” in order to keep control, because shouting doesn’t work anymore. In effect, they’re just trying to get a bigger club every time there’s a conflict to manage their child’s behavior. With pre-teens and teens, a bigger club becomes inefficient and ineffective. At this age, your child is meeting other kids who see their parents as nuisances at best. As your child develops that kind of peer group, it’s hard for you to get a bigger hammer— because now your child has nothing to lose: his need to belong is being met by his peers, not by his family.

So again, many parents just resort to upping the ante. They often threaten to ground their child for long periods of time, as I mentioned. But who wants to ground their child for thirty days? That means you’ve got to live with them for thirty days, too. I used to tell parents, “You want to ground your 16-year-old for a month? What, do you hate yourself?” I said this in a joking manner, but it was my way of stating that long, drawn-out punishments don’t work—for the child or the parent. These kinds of consequences are ineffective and often only succeed in getting your child to shut down emotionally. And they certainly do nothing to stop the yelling and arguing between you and your child.

5 Ways to Stop the Yelling in Your Home and Get Your Child to Listen to You

If you want your child to listen to you, I personally think you need a system in your home in which it becomes the child’s responsibility to listen to you. Here are ­­­five things you can start doing right away to stop the yelling and screaming:

The truth is, the earlier we teach kids a broad repertoire of coping and problem solving skills, the less yelling and acting out there will be. Appropriate coping skills include compliance, negotiating, and assertiveness, and they all can be used effectively to circumvent the default mode of shouting and yelling.

Finally, remember that if you’re a child living in an environment where parents yell a lot, then yelling is normal in that environment—and a normal kid will learn how to yell back. After all, it seems like the appropriate response. I always recommend that parents make the decision to not yell—and really work on it. Believe me, the screaming matches in your home will die a natural death once you stop engaging in them.

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.

One of the biggest struggles I have is how to motivate kids – my kids in general, two of them in particular. One of them is just plain lazy, at least that’s how it appears. There is probably more to it than that, but it sure comes across that way. The other one is a struggling teen – she has school problems, is frequently depressed, and can be extremely belligerent to us. Teen motivation isn’t one of the easiest things to do; you really have to have a strategy.

I was recently looking for answers and found a couple of good articles by James Lehman on the Empowering Parents website. One of them really applied to both of my problem kiddos. It’s called Motivating Underachievers – When Your Child Says “I Don’t Care”. It gave me several great ideas – I’ll share a few that have worked for us.

One of the things he says we have to understand is that it’s impossible for teens and pre-teens not to be motivated – it just depends on what they’re motivated to do. Quite often, they’re motivated to resist us, withdraw, or under-perform. Instead of acting out, they’re acting in!

So how can you motivate teens? Mr. Lehman gives 9 “motivate tips” to get through to your unmotivated children or teenagers. Here are 4 of them that really resonated with us.

1. Look at what your child likes. The idea here is to observe what your child likes to do. Don’t take his word for it, he’ll say “nothing matters”. But look at his actions – does he watch a lot of TV, play video games, play on the computer? Observe, and write them down – later on you can use these things as incentives.
2. Make sure everything is earned each day. This is one I didn’t realize, but it makes sense. You have to hold unmotivated children accountable. Make sure everything is earned. Life for these kids has to be one day at a time. They should have to earn their TV or video games. How? By doing their homework and chores. They earn their cell phone today, and then start over tomorrow.
3. Have conversations about what your child wants. This has been very successful with my daughter. It’s not small stuff, like the phone or iPod, but bigger things like a car, driver’s license, apartment, and so forth. She has to have good enough grades to take driver’s ed, to get insurance, and to be able to get a job so she can move out on her own. This is motivating her well, and in a more long-term way.
4. Don’t shout, argue, beg or plead. If you do any of these things, it lets your child know he’s in control. With underperforming kids, you have to be very cool. Keep the shouting to a minimum!

One thing you have to realize is that being an underachiever gives your child a sense of control and power, because she doesn’t have to worry about the anxiety of failure or meeting responsibilities. She doesn’t have to deal with people’s expectations. Once people start expecting more of these kids, they fall apart.

That’s a few tips about dealing with underachiever children. To read the whole article, click here.

If you like what you read, and want to learn more, consider trying out The Total Transformation program. It’s a CD, DVD and workbook set with hundreds of ideas for managing challenging behaviors in kids. It’s done wonders for our family – believe me, if you’re willing to work at it, you will get results.

by James Lehman, MSW

In Part II of Motivating Underachievers, James explains what you can do to get your child on track before school starts—and how you can motivate them to do their school work during the year.

“I believe that when kids are so-called lazy, that’s really an attitudinal issue about ‘Why bother, my life’s not going to get any better anyway.’”

For a teenager, there are many ways to say “screw you” to your parents. And for underachieving kids, being motivated to do nothing is one of those ways. I believe that when kids are so-called lazy, that’s really an attitudinal issue about “Why bother, my life’s not going to get any better anyway.” And when kids develop that kind of attitude, many times there’s a lot of stuff going on in their lives which overwhelms them. Resisting their parents’ expectations is one way that they can feel like they’re in control. For these children and teens, the path to power becomes a game of withholding and resisting, and they often sink under the waves at school. The sad part is that this game only works until they’re young adults—and then no one else will be willing to play it with them.

What to Say to Kids Who Had a Bad Year Last Year

For the kids who had a hard time in school the previous year, parents should be talking to them about what they learned from that hard time. After all, we’re supposed to learn from difficulty. While this talk should ideally happen at the end of the school year, you can still have this conversation now. (Be prepared for the fact that kids will often deny that it was that bad a year—that’s why it’s good to have the conversation while the year is still fresh in their mind, in the spring.)

Before school starts and when things are going well, sit down with your child, and say, “Look, there’s something that I think would be helpful to talk about. What did you learn from what you went through last year? I’m not criticizing, but what did you learn?” And then the follow up question should be, “And what will you do differently this year?” Not what they’ll say differently. “What will you do differently to stay on top of your grades,” or “What will you do differently to get along better with your classmates or with the teachers? Let’s pick one thing you can do right now from day one that will help you move in that direction.”

When kids stumble and fall, I think our goal is to always ask what they’re going to do differently and what they’ve learned. When my son would fail a test, I would say, “What did you learn from this? And what are you going to do differently?” These questions talk about the future and get the child to think about what they will do to change the outcome. I looked at it this way: the test was over, and he failed it. That was the natural consequence. I didn’t need to make speeches at him or blame him, because that’s not an effective way to get change. I was interested in what he was going to do so he would pass the next test.

The whole coaching and teaching role is about, “What did you learn from this, what are you going to do differently, how can I help you with those skills?” Sometimes what your child is going to do differently is do his homework at the kitchen table so somebody is there to make sure that he does it. Sometimes it’s going to be studying with a friend. But you always want concrete answers to what your child’s going to do differently, whenever they have a hard time and whenever they slip up.

If they don’t come through with any ideas or say, “I don’t know,” you should make some suggestions and have them pick one. Certainly, you can try to reason with them. But there’s nothing wrong with saying, “I want to see your homework every day till you pass the next test.” Or “I want your door open when you do the homework until you pass the next test.” It’s OK to lay that down on them so that the accountability becomes more personal. But first, you give them a chance. That way, the next time you have this talk with them, your child will know what’s going on. He’ll have the script, he’ll know what he’s supposed to say and do.

6 Things You Can Do to Get Your Kids back on Track before School Starts:

Start Waking up Early: A week before school starts, have all your kids use their alarms and wake up at the time they’ll be getting up during the school year. They should wash their face, brush their teeth and come out and have breakfast. Afterward, they can go back to sleep, start their day—whatever they normally do. What you want to get them used to is doing their hygiene at a certain time, getting dressed at a certain time and showing up in the kitchen in time to make your school bus or their ride.

Start Having an Hour of Quiet Time at Night. Have quiet time at night if you don’t already have it. This will become part of their homework time. But for now, let them read a book, comics, or magazines. What they do in quiet time is not as important as the fact that there’s no electronics—including cell phones and texting—during this time.

Stop Allowing Your Teen to Go out at Night During the Week: For older kids, about a week before school, they should not be able to go out at night. They have to get back into their school schedule, which means saying, “No going out to socialize after dinner, you have to stay home.” So your child will get used to being home at night. Over the summer, teen-agers tend to get more and more freedom. That’s just a natural process, especially if they’re older teens. What you want to do is get them to gravitate toward the home, which is one of the centers of their educational life. You go to school from home; you go to sports activities from home; you do your homework at home. In the summer, “outside the home” becomes the focus. Whether it’s day camp or camping out with your friends by the lake for four days, the focus is outside of the home. This is good, but now kids need to be brought back in.

Don’t be surprised if your child or teen resists this. Let’s face it, it’s hard to get back on track. Picture yourself coming back from vacation, and think of how hard it can be to get back in the groove at work. You will probably hear your child make excuses like, “It’s not school yet, I’m still on vacation.” That may be true, but I think you want to say to them very clearly, “You need to get back on track. And once you do these things, if you stay home after dinner, you can do what you want except for that hour of quiet time. And after you get up in the morning, you can do what you want after we meet in the kitchen. You can have breakfast, go back to bed, go hang with your friends.”

Remember, Rehearsaland Repetition prepare children for their responsibilities. Intellectualizing doesn’t work. Preaching doesn’t work. Philosophizing doesn’t work. What works is the concrete tasks of rehearsal and repetition. That’s true for all kids—and even more so for teenagers.

Keep Track of Your Child’s Assignments: Have your child’s teacher email you his homework assignments or have him carry an assignment book back and forth, so that there’s communication between you and the school. You should know exactly what your child has to do that night. And then you should set up some kind of reward system when he does it.

Consider Rewarding Your Child for Good Grades: If my son got all A’s and B’s, he was rewarded with some cash. If he didn’t, he didn’t get punished; he just didn’t get the money. We didn’t threaten him or anything; it was just a standing thing in our home. When my son didn’t do well on the test, I asked him, “So what are you going to do differently next time?” That’s what you have to do with underachievers. “What’d you learn from this?” They might say, “I don’t know, I didn’t learn anything.” And then you can say, “Well, I’d like you to learn that maybe you should’ve studied more. Or maybe you should’ve studied with a friend.” In fact, sometimes studying with another child helps your child get motivated. Nothing motivates kids like studying with other kids—nothing. In my opinion, well-managed study groups are very helpful.

Have Your Child Earn the Right to Study on His Own: You can also motivate your child to succeed by having them earn rights around the house. “When you get all B’s and above, you can go to your room and do your homework. But as long as you have C’s and B’s, you will not study in your room. More than one C and you’re down here.” It’s completely dealt with that way. So in order to function more independently, your child has to achieve. He just doesn’t get to go to his room and do his homework by himself—he has to be near a parent at all times.

Natural Consequences: Let me be clear: failure is a part of life. By the time kids hit their teenage years, they’re sick of failure. But failure is just one of the things that they encounter all along the way, from the time they’re two years old to when they’re 17. Believe me, kids know when they’ve failed, they understand what that means. I personally believe that you have to let your child experience natural consequences. This means you should let them fail that year in school or let them fail that subject. If that still doesn’t motivate them or if it adds to their lack of motivation, that’s when you have to seek professional help.

Why are Smart or “Gifted” Kids Sometimes Underachievers?

Gifted is a funny word. People throw it around a lot these days, and parents cling to it because they crave it. But gifted is as gifted does. In other words, gifts are not gifts until you use them to accomplish something. There may be wonderful gifted painters in the world, but we see DaVinci’s work. There may be wonderful, gifted actors, but we see DeNiro’s body of work. We see people who have used their gifts and worked hard to create something. Maybe DaVinci and DeNiro were gifted, but they also worked their butts off to produce their accomplishments.

If they told me that my son was gifted, that would not be good news for me unless he was performing. If your child is doing well and they actually tell you he’s gifted, great. But if he’s not performing and they tell you he’s gifted, they’re telling you that something’s wrong. What they’re telling you is, “He understands what’s going on and he’s making the non-constructive choice not to do it.” And that’s not good news. Also, I would caution parents not to get confused by words like gifted and smart; that’s how you’re being misdirected. I think that when the school says your child is gifted, sometimes what they’re saying is, “We don’t want to take any responsibility. He’s smart enough to do this himself.”

I believe that while sometimes we’re too stingy with praise, we’re sometimes too quick to give it. Sometimes we’re too quick to say “That’s a great job” instead of saying, “I see you’re trying harder. That’s cool.” We’re too quick to label a child gifted without giving him the right kind of help. I recommend not to give kids things as if they’re completely accomplished in life. Always talk about their progress.

When you’re working with teenagers who are underachievers, it’s hard to sit down and have these conversations sometimes. Believe me, I know it is hard work to talk with teenagers. But you have to do things that are hard if you’re a parent; there are no shortcuts. We need to be coaches, teachers and limit setters for our children if we want them to succeed in life. Coaching your child to do better is one of the key ways to become a more effective parent. Always remember, the goal is not to become a good parent—and it’s not even to avoid being a bad parent. Rather, the goal is to become a more effective parent. That’s not ever an easy task, but the goal is extremely worthwhile.

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.