I thought it would be cool to share with you what I have learned about the brain. If my previous blog post caused you a sense of hopelessness, this might cheer you up.

The Nancy Thomas videos I’ve been watching actually show PET scans of the brain. This is where the picture highlights what areas of the brain the energy is coming from. Frontal lobe (logical, processing) or rear lobe (fight/flight). Guess where my kid camps? You got it, back of his brain. In fact, he feels more comfortable there since this is where he has functioned from most of his life. Don’t get me wrong, he is a straight A student. He just handles life from the back of his head. And since life is safer there, he will do whatever he can to keep himself there, like freak out so I get mad or threaten him. This is just hunky dory living the good life for him. He knows how to operate and function and can be in power and control here.

The cool thing here is that I can bring him to the front of his brain. How, you ask? By not operating out of anger or threatening him for starters. Threatening – like “If you don’t clean your room by 1pm, you can’t play video games”. Or “If you get an F, you can’t have a sleepover”. So now I am trying “You can play video games when your room is clean”. Not sure if that will work better, but seems less threatening!

Also, keeping my anger in check when talking to him. Actually joking helps a lot, not hurtful teasing but joking keeps the humor level up and the tantrum level down. If he really makes me mad, (which surprisingly after learning some of this I don’t take his behavior so personally and am getting less angry), I give myself a timeout until I can talk calmly.

And the very best part of this is reprogramming the brain. Starting by doing the things above and learning how his brain is working has helped me to feel less hopeless and helpless as a parent.

Do you have an unattached child? It’s not easy, but there is hope! Two resources we’ve used are When Love Is Not Enough by Nancy Thomas and Total Transformation by James Lehman. Both offer tons of help in dealing with your Reactive Attachment Disorder kiddo.

You might be wondering if I’m making money by promoting the Total Transformation 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.

She first, sadly in her anger about being called out, put her arm through a wall. Then she did everything in her power to put this on us. “You don’t trust me” seemed to be the most common refrain. When we reiterated that the issue wasn’t trust, it was breaking a rule, she did a bait and switch.

“I hate living here” came flying out next quickly followed up with “I am leaving”. And off she went to her friend’s house, swearing and huffing down the street. We made it clear that if she did not return by 11pm she would be breaking curfew and restated the consequences for that.

After an evening of back and forth from said friend’s house, insisting we write the rules down “right down to what shoes and earrings I can wear”, demanding an apology from us, threatening to not return if we did not immediately change the rule, and a long phone call by us to the friends mom to reassure her we did not kick our daughter out, she finally got it that we weren’t going to budge.

With constant reassurance (she called us at 11pm to give it one more shot) that everyone makes mistakes and glad she is making them at home where we can work through them, that we love her the same as we did always, and home was the best place for her, she broke and had her daddy come get her.

How’d we do it you ask? It took a lot of remembering what we learned, she is a teen who is self-centered in trying to become independent; not to react out of anger at her rude behavior; stay focused on the issue at hand – breaking the rule. The last one helped us mostly stay calm and not head down the defensive rabbit trails she was laying at our feet.

And today business as usual and trust me she tried to see if we are going to be sad and sorry by pushing us a bit. But once she saw that all was status quo, our normally sweet girl returned. Oh yeah, she gets to learn a new skill too, drywalling!

Looking for help with your defiant teenager? Take a look at The Total Transformation by James Lehman today. It works for us!

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 started looking through my Total Transformation workbook for some answers, and I happened upon a section called “Ineffective Parenting Roles”. Uh oh, this doesn’t sound good. Better take a look, though.

James Lehman describes seven different parenting roles, that he terms “well-meaning but ineffective”, because they fail to promote responsibility, accountability, or change. In looking through these roles, I could see myself playing 6 of the 7 at one time or another. Ouch! For being able to play that many roles, I ought to get an academy award!

The role I play in this instance is the Martyr. Here’s a short description.

The Martyr:

• Takes on the child’s responsibilities, for example, wakes their child up repeatedly.
• Constantly lowers expectations, giving unconditional acceptance.
• Fears that the child will experience unhappiness or distress.

And here’s what the child learns:

• Learned helplessness is effective. The less ability the child demonstrates, the less is asked of him.
• Unconditional approval can be demanded – you don’t have to earn approval, you simply demand it and threaten to misbehave if you don’t get it.
• His parent has no confidence in him. The child learns that he is not competent to achieve tasks, earn approval, or manage his own behavior.

Lovely, huh? And I thought I was doing them a favor!

The other six permissive parenting styles

See if you can relate to any of these. I’m just going to give you a brief explanation of each – James Lehman describes them in much greater detail in the Total Transformation (and tells you what to do to fix them!)

1. Bottomless Pockets – Buys the child things to stop the child’s constant demands or to “prevent” behavior problems. Child learns a false sense of entitlement.
2. Over-Negotiator – Negotiates already established rules, commitments, and standards. Child learns that boundaries aren’t solid.
3. Screamer – Gets drawn into screaming matches and name-calling. Child learns that no one is in control.
4. Ticket Puncher – Over indulges the child emotionally. The parent takes any and all opportunities to shower their child with “love and attention”. The child learns there is no objective right or wrong.
5. The Savior – Sides with the child in spite of the facts. Child learns that he can be insulated from authority.
6. The Perfectionist – Sets impossibly high standards. Child learns to expect failure.

There you go – do you see yourself in any of those? I hope you don’t, but I know I’ve been guilty of most of them at one time or another. If you do feel like you need some help, or just want to learn more about these ineffective permissive parenting styles, get your hands on a copy of the The Total Transformation and check it out for yourself.

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.

There we go! That was a much easier route for my mind to take, since it didn’t involve anyone being at fault, me or them! Cool! I figured I’d just get out my trusty Total Transformation workbook, find the section on age appropriate expectations, and I’d get my answer. (By the way, I refer to that workbook and the Total Transformation CD’s often – they’re starting to get worn out!)

I did find a section on age appropriate behavior, including age appropriate consequences and age appropriate rewards. (I discuss this a little further down in this article), but what really caught my eye was a section on styles of parenting, and I realized that this applied perfectly here. James Lehman, creator of the Total Transformation program, talked about seven different parenting roles that parents play. These roles are generally well-meaning but ineffective because they fail to promote responsibility, accountability, or change.

The Seven Permissive Parenting Roles

These roles are Bottomless Pockets, Over-Negotiator, The Screamer, The Ticket Puncher, The Savior, The Martyr, and The Perfectionist. With titles like that, I had to read further. What I was soon to discover was that I played several of the roles, and I played them well! The one that applied in this instance was The Martyr.

The Martyr takes on the child’s responsibilities, constantly lowers expectations, and fears that the child will experience unhappiness or distress. I could see myself perfectly in this role, and I didn’t really like it. The thing I like about James Lehman is that he says it like it is, most of the time it’s just good common sense, but when you’re in the middle of the battle with your child, common sense doesn’t often come in to play. Too many emotions flying around the room, it really helps to hear and see what Mr. Lehman has to say.

If you want to read more about the different parenting styles, click here.

Now, to get back to age appropriate behaviors, consequences and rewards. Here’s how Mr. Lehman sees the different age groups.

Ages 5-9 – At this age, children are interested in time with parents and other adults. They are beginning to establish some independent relationships with peers, but often need some adult support with this. Age appropriate consequences include going to bed early, losing TV or computer time, and going to their room. Rewards could be staying up late, earning stickers, and having someone do a chore for you.

Ages 10-14 – Children at this age are just beginning to struggle with a sense of themselves. In addition, they are practicing independence, while still requiring a great deal of parental supervision and support. Connections to peers are becoming primarily important in their lives. Judgment can be poor when an older teen is offered choices and activities. Consequences might be losing TV time, being grounded from activities, or losing phone time. Rewards include use of cell phone, gaining computer time, and getting to choose the food for dinner.

Ages 15-17 – At this age, adolescents must be working on independence. Priorities center around peers and young adult activities. They are trying new things and building new skills. Most of the motivators at this age, both positive and negative, center around the car – being able to drive it, or being banned from it. Others include loss or gaining of phone time, and computer or TV time.

That all sounds great, but my kid’s not there! How can I get him there?

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

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

Fortunately, those days are far behind us, and we’ve both been clean and sober for nearly 20 years, and have managed to become a happily married couple – most of the time, that is. We still have our problems, but we work through them with the help of tools and techniques we’ve been taught by various counselors throughout the years. And we continue to go to counseling on an as-needed basis, whenever we feel we need a little “tune-up”. There’s nothing wrong with admitting that you need help figuring things out.

Counseling is not for everybody

While I totally recommend counseling for anyone that’s having marital problems, I also understand that’s just not the route that some people want to go, for a variety of reasons, such as:

• They don’t want to expose their lives and/or problems to a stranger.
• They can’t afford it.
• They don’t have the time.

The Us Factor

Because of this fact, I was excited to learn that the creators of The Total Transformation had developed a marriage program called The Us Factor. I thought, “this might be the answer for couples that were struggling” so I got a copy of it and we started to go through it together.

What we found was some very good training by a counselor named Dr. Joseph Melnick, a licensed psychologist. I heard many of the things I’d learned from my counselors, and a few new ideas to boot! And I’m only through the first 3 DVD’s. If you’d like, you can read my Us Factor Review at our marriage website, How To Fix Your Marriage.

If you’re in the category of needing a little (or a lot) of help with your marriage, and you just don’t want to go to counseling, maybe The Us Factor is for you. Like Total Transformation, it doesn’t cost anything to try it out for a month, so it might be worth your while!

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.