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.

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.

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.

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.