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!

One thing I find very interesting as a parent is how kids deal with things that they feel are unfair. I found that when they don’t believe the situation is fair, all rules go out the window. The fairness becomes the focus not the unacceptable behavior.

Let me give you an example. I have firm rules about the time and the length of time the kids can play video games.  Sometimes the length of time gets bumped due to the time they must be finished. My 11-year old cannot abide this hierarchy.  “But Mom, Sean got to play for an hour.  Why do I have to get off at 5? I only started at 4:30.” This conversation is, of course, happening  about 5:15 too! So now the focus is redirected from playing past the stop time to getting his full hour. And if I let him, away we would go down this rabbit trail with me trying to defend why the stop time has first preference over the length of time, again!

And guess what isn’t getting addressed? That’s right…the stop time infraction. It takes concerted effort on my part to recognize “the unfair” distraction and stay focused. Don’t misunderstand me here, I explained the hierarchy when I established these rules so this is not a surprise to him.

Ok so what do I do? I listen for the fair word to come up so I am not sideswiped and find myself down the road. I continue to stay focused on the infraction at hand.  Just as a great side note, I have noticed that when I do this right, my child feels safe. My guess it is because I am in control and as I’ve said before, every kid wants to know who is in charge here and am I loved.

James Lehman talks about this “fairness” issue in the Total Transformation Program, saying that “Injustice” is one of the characteristics and practice of children with disrespectful, obnoxious, abusive behavior. Some of the others that he talks about are One-Way Boundaries, Casing, False Apologies, and Pride in Negativity. In all, he describes 16 characteristics that parents of this type of child should be aware of. You need to find out more about Total Transformation today if you’ve got these kind of problems with your child.

Teenagers are masters at arguing. That fact wouldn’t be so hard to handle if I didn’t find myself getting sucked into it. Before I know it, I am miles down “Argument Lane” and frustration doesn’t even being to describe my insides!

So one day, after several of these go rounds with my 15-yr old, I decided something has to give. I remember hearing an interesting tidbit on Total Transformation CD #7 how to stop this from continuing. It had to start with me having a conversation with said 15-yr old outside “Argument Lane”. I stated that the next time he started in,  I was going to listen to his side once only. After that, if he didn’t like what he heard, it was up to him to have a strategy to walk away (I helped him figure out a few ideas like walking away, going to his room and listening to tunes, shooting hoops).

And while he was doing that, to think positive thoughts instead of the negative “this isn’t fair” or better yet “my mom is such a jerk” ones that perpetuate his arguing.  Also helping him (since he was a novice at this positive way), I suggested he weigh the consequences (which we discussed during this time too) and decide if the arguing was worth it and even use this phrase as part of his positive thinking. Or “what is my part in this?”

The results have been good. I have had to prompt him when he starts down the “Lane” and he has responded well.  I like it here on “Communication Lane” much better and I think he may even agree!

As we work through the Total Transformation DVD’s and CD’s, we thought it would be worthwhile to explain a little about what the workbook is like, so you know what to expect from that part of the program.

The Total Transformation workbook is 118 pages, and it starts out explaining a little about the program, and a little about the creator, James Lehman. Then it immediately jumps into the training – it suggests you watch the Jump Start DVD, then answer a bunch of questions about your child (or children, as in our case – you may need to make extra copies of these pages). These questions are designed to help you identify the behaviors to focus on with your kid(s).

Then, Mr. Lehman suggests going to lesson 1 in the workbook, and taking a pre-test to lesson 1. After you take the test, you are to listen to CD #1 and then go through the exercises and/or additional information in the workbook. After lesson 1 in the workbook, there is a post-test, exactly the same as the pre-test, for you to take and see if your answers changed. He doesn’t do the post-test in every chapter, but he does do the pre-test.

A few of examples of the true/false questions he asks in the workbook are:

1. Children have to learn to feel good about themselves in order to be successful.
2. Inappropriate behavior is usually caused by low self-esteem.
3. When children lose control, they do not know what they are doing or saying.
4. Children will learn to solve their own problems if you only let them.

The answers to the above questions? 1: False 2: False 3: False 4: False

Did you get them all right? I know I didn’t – in fact, when I first took the test I only got 3 out of 10 right! I think I have some things to learn, right? The cool thing is, I have 5 kids and the oldest is 15, but it doesn’t matter – it’s never too late to get started with this program. All of my kids, including the oldest, have changed significantly from the techniques I’m now using.

The Total Transformation workbook goes through each chapter and CD in a similar fashion – recap, training, special words from Mr. Lehman, and tests. It’s great – and it’s not overwhelming. He suggests you take it one CD per week, and work on one, two, ten, or all of the techniques suggested. Then, move on to the next DVD.

Next post – the Jump Start DVD.

What exactly does Total Transformation teach you? In other words, what kind of information do you get?

If you’re looking for a product that will help you to change your kids without changing yourself, then don’t buy Total Transformation! It’s very clear from the start as we go through the DVD’s and CD’s that James Lehman’s goal is to train parents to change the way they deal with their kids, which in turns makes the child change his ways.

Mr. Lehman asserts from the start that the reason that kids are disobedient, abusive, and obnoxious is they don’t know how to problem solve, and they are compensating for that weakness by acting out. As parents, our job is to teach our kids how to problem solve, and one way we do that is to let them experience the consequences of making poor decisions. In order to do that, we need to learn when to step back and not intervene in their life.

There are many different ineffective roles that parents play in raising their children – the martyr, the savior, bottomless pockets, over-negotiator, and ticket puncher are a few. These are roles that we as parents need to change if we’re going to restore the sanity around our house. James Lehman goes over each of these roles and cures for them in the Total Transformation, and I’m going to touch on most if not all of them in my reviews of the program.

Bottom line – you probably need to change. You can’t expect to fix your child if you’re not willing to learn and grow yourself. If that sounds like something you won’t mind doing, then Total Transformation might be for you.

Next post – The Total Transformation Workbook.