One particular of the difficulties that teenagers possess is faulty thinking, or “stinking thinking”. In reality, it’s a dilemma that grownups have, also. Precisely what I’m speaking about is whenever you think a specific way in order to justify a conduct. For example, if you’re on a diet program and you treat yourself to a large piece of cake due to the fact you’ve been doing such a fine job, that is a thinking error. Rewarding yourself in that way is counter-productive to your desired goals, and is justifying the piece of pie. It’s not logical, and it’s self-defeating.

Teens are additionally masters of thinking errors, which is easy to understand, for the reason that from my personal experience kids do not start thinking rationally until at some point in their twenties. Consequently up until that time, their thinking is defective. A excellent example of this is the victim mentality.

It’s not my fault!

That’s the mantra of the defiant child with the victim attitude – that nothing is ever their mistake. Generally this stance comes about when they’re challenged by a circumstance, or they can’t meet their duties. I’ve got a little shooter that will use any defense in the book not to accomplish his homework, and it’s never his fault. Teacher did not make me check my box. I had to go to youth group. You took too long making dinner and I ran out of time. Brother took my time period on the video game, so I got started late. On and on and on. Always everybody else’s problem.

Here’s the dilemma with that. Generally, whenever a struggling teen won’t meet his obligations, natural consequences will help him change next time. If he doesn’t perform his homework, he will get in trouble by the teacher and perhaps ashamed in front of the class, and next time hopefully he will do his homework. Whenever a teenager has the victim attitude, however, he perceives it is not his wrong doing, so he doesn’t need to really feel ashamed or in trouble. His thinking error is that he did not do anything wrong.

Exactly how do you deal with little victims?

The most effective way to manage this problem is to confront them directly. Inform them “your teacher said you are not getting your homework completed. What is going on?” and let them respond. If they blame someone else, don’t argue with them, but say plainly “This is your responsibility. In the event that you need assistance, you can ask for it. You’re not the victim here – you have options”. Then ask if he has homework, and tell him to go do it and let you know when it’s finished. Zero long lectures, merely get him moving. It’s alright if he seems uncomfortable, that’s precisely where you want him!

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!

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.

An interesting thing happened on the way to opera last night (just kidding about the opera) - my daughter decided to be defiant. Straight up, in our face “I am going to break your rules”. And when we confronted her, all h-e-double toothpicks broke loose! It was straight out of James Lehman’s Total Transformation chapter on the Turn Around.

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.