ONLINE PARENTING COACH

Hi Mark, I have a problem which has been ongoing on and off for a while. My 14 year old daughter (the eldest of twins) keeps saying really mean things to and about her peers at school. Oh I should mention this twin always seems to be in competition with her twin sister, but this is not the case for twin sister. I hope that made sense. She keeps blaming everything on her twin sister when it goes wrong with her peers and will not take responsibility for her actions or for saying mean things to her peers. She just expects her friends to keep taking the meanness and just keep going on with life as if she has said nothing mean. I try to explain to her that her peers are getting feed up with the meanness and that she will not have any friends if she keeps it up. When I try to explain this, she flies of the handle, saying “I don’t want to talk about it and stay out of it.” Every time her friends get funny with her she wonders why they are like it and blames her twin sister for taking h...

Mark: Thanks for being there. I have a problem I need to act fast on. Over weekend my 15 (almost 16) daughter was caught by police at a party gone bad. They found her on the street and held her until we picked her up in the police car - she was not charged. The house was trashed according to the police officier. We also found out that she was at a another party on Friday night and was given a ride home from a senior - she has been told we do not want her in car with kids. She has become a very believable liar. She is very vague with story and sticks to main points. I asked her again, to let me know what happened on Saturday and she repeated same story and asked for phone back - that she should not be grounded based on being at the wrong place at the wrong time. She and friends were picking up someone and had to go to door to get them, because there phone went dead - both of them. Anyways, at that moment the police came and everyone took off. She and a couple of the boys were...

My son is feeling more and more negative about himself. No one ever wants to play with him and it's painful to hear him say such negative things. What do I say to him when he talks like that? It seems like talking positively can make it worse. ``````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` Moms & dads, more than anyone else can promote their youngster's self-esteem. It isn't a particularly difficult thing to do. If fact, most moms & dads do it without even realizing that their words and actions have great impact on how their youngster or teenager feels about himself. Here are some suggestions to keep in mind. When you feel good about your youngster, mention it to him. Moms & dads are often quick to express negative feelings to kids but somehow don't get around to describing positive feelings. A youngster doesn't know when you are feeling good about him and he needs to hear you tell him that you like having him in the family. Kids...

Hi Mark, I have not been at peace with myself about this subject for the past 2 years. My daughter, M_____, is a freshman at college, lives on campus and has done very well the first semester. The college is 45 minutes away from our house, so she returns every weekend. I am having a terrible time with my inner peace about her spending nights with her boyfriend from high school, C___, when she returns home. I will not allow her boyfriend to sleep at our house, but the boyfriend lives with his grandparents who allow my daughter to sleep at their house. At first I was nice to him, but I do not respect him for encouraging her to do this. It has come to me not wanting to face him, so I don't. A few months ago, I went as far as calling the grandmother to tell her that I am opposed to that behavior and we had a nice chat. Nothing has changed and my daughter at 18 continues to do this. She stayed every single night at the boyfriends over Christmas break. She did this with the ...

Dear Mark, I have been asked to help care for a young girl of a friend of mine. We went to youth court today and I have been given permission to work with the psychologist and school to help this 12 year old. She has been molested on several different occasions and is very defiant with her mother who has been neglectful in the past. She has been diagnosed with ADHD PTSD and a defiance disorder. Her mother has asked me for help and I have some concerns about her behavior. I do not want to put myself at risk of being accused of inappropriate sexual conduct or child abuse. She has a very distorted perception of reality. She lies about everything and she has had a suicide attempt. I watched her lie to a judge today and lie about the cell phone she stole from her mom this morning. I am purchasing your book this evening for her mother. I am not sure how I can help or if I am in too deep. Her mom called me in hysterics this evening at her wits end. I have been supportive in the...

Hi Mark, Thanks so much for your response. Many of the points you made are right on! We know where we are regarding lack of skills. I think my question is that my son has severe lack of coping skills and challenges re: depression. He's missed out on so much emotional growth because of his depression. He is so behind that I question whether we can move him ahead on our own as parents. He is willing to go to therapy, but, honestly, usually shuts down at some point. We are holding him to chores, not giving him any money, he has to do stuff around the house to earn use of the car daily. Still, this is excruciatingly slow. And I don't know whether he will ever decide to get a job. Rather, he just seems willing to sit in the basement when he runs out of money. (He has $55 left to his name.) He has so far to go re: dealing with his emotions, accepting responsibility for making decisions and taking actions to move forward with his life . . . I think it would take 2 years if ...

Mark, You have no idea how much heartache, or how many stomachaches and headaches you have alleviated for me, or maybe you do… I hope you do! Well if you don't, please know that where I'm concerned, you are a true angel and I just hope you continue doing what you're doing! Thanks again! =-) Signed, Parent to an up and coming Adult! Online Parent Support

Hi Mark, I’m the mother of a beautiful, strong willed 12-year-old daughter. She has always been tall for her age but is now 5’ 11”, 120lbs with blue eyes, long blond hair and naturally tanned looking skin. She looks like a supermodel of about 17 and knows it. Unfortunately she attracts the attention of young men in their late teens & early 20s, will dress in ways to make herself look older, and basically enjoys baiting them. Unfortunately her best friend (a 13 year old without much common sense) met a young man (17years old) through an Internet chat room and invited this person to meet them at the mall for a movie. (Of course all this sort of thing is kept secret from us through lies.) While at the movie my daughter allowed this boy to kiss her, which then turned into rape. I discovered what happened by accident when I found a pregnancy test kit in my daughter’s room. When I asked her about it she told me what happened, was of course very upset, glad that I finally knew and...

Hi Mark- Just to let you know, I spent 300 bucks on the Total Transformation program. Have you heard of it? I wish I had found your site before I made that purchase. Although there are a few tips that were somewhat helpful, it left me largely at a loss on what to do to get my son to cooperate. There was no "transformation". Far from it. On the other hand, your information - as you said - it not the usual set of parenting strategies that everyone tries to use to no avail. Your videos and phone consult have helped me to get my son back. Just wanted you to know. You really are worth much more than $29.00 - but thanks for being affordable - and for being there for "real" assistance rather than for the money. Eternally grateful, Marge C. Online Parent Support

Dear Mark, I ordered your ebook and talked to you on the phone about my daughter a while back and just wanted to say thank you and let you know that your methods work for us! As you predicted, first the frequency of conflicts decreased at first and then later the intensity decreased. And better yet, the conflicts we have now are about less critical matters, for example, over staying on the internet too long rather than over staying out with unsavory friends too late. We communicate much better, too. Again, thank you for what you are doing, and for being there to help so many parents like me who have been overwhelmed with raising teenagers. S. Online Parent Support

Would you recommend this program to friends or family? Definitely. I have recommended it many times already. Did you get a timely response to your emails? I have not needed to email yet, But Mark has kept to his word on everything else, so I am confident emails would be timely. What was the most helpful feature of Online Parent Support? When I started the program, I felt so lost and helpless. Mark said things that made me swear he knew my child personally. Everything I read seemed to be about my child. This was how I knew this program was different, and that it could work. The steps were easy to follow, and the results were fast. When we took the parenting quiz, I scored an 80 and my husband scored 100. This really opened our eyes. Now all 3 of my children are happier and easier to deal with. What was the least helpful? I cannot think of one thing I would change about this program. Thank you so much. Additional Comments: My child had been on medication for ADD for several yea...

Just a quick note to say thank you for your program. You have done a really great job on this and it was very affordable. My mother bought me a $300 program – while I must say that any additional tools I get out of it will be worth any cost, I honestly received more helpful information out of your program. My son and I were going down a very ugly spiral – I am a single mom and always the “bad guy”. He got to the point that he simply defied the punishments and the behavior got worse each day. It has only been a month and school has been out for the last couple weeks, but I feel like we are making progress. This gave us a new direction and I have had much more PEACE! One of the biggest problem areas is the failing grades at school – it really took a load off of me to stop micro-managing that area. Since he had been totally grounded for so long and really got worse when he was simply “ungrounded” altogether, I had him earn the free time by getting passing grades. If he works at ...

Dear Mark: I’m a new parent to your site. I need assistance and want to ensure I’m not being unreasonable with my son. Please advise me. He wants to throw his clean clothes (that he did agree to wash and dry) on the floor in his closet rather than hang them up. I feel they should be hung up or put into drawers. I don’t even care if he folds then. He says he’ll just throw them on the floor. Am I being unreasonable? Should I just provide another “bin”, like his dirty clothes bin, and let him throw his clean clothes in there? I don’t want to be too demanding; it is his space and his clothes. Please advise. Thanks. K. ``````````````````````````````````````` Hi K., Great question. This falls into the "pick-your-battles-carefully" category. I'm sure you have bigger fish to fry than worrying about clothes on the floor. Are you being unreasonable? Not really. Is it a battle you should fight. No way! Get a clean clothes bin. Mark Online P...

Hi, I was wondering if anybody has tried sound therapy with their children, like Tomatis or AIT and what the results were?? My son was recently diagnosed with possibly Aspergers at 3 years of age, he is now 4-- he really does not act or behave in ways that are typical for Aspergers- by that I mean he does not need to stick to a rigid routine or have difficulty with new transitions--he does have different play behaviors- forms bottles, crayons and utensils and makes them into different shapes or numbers and is fascinated with both letters, numbers and music but has other areas of interest as well but not as strong of an interest. He definitely has some sensory issues going on and I was wondering if sound therapy could help this?? Please help?? Thanks—Christina ```````````````````````````````` Autism is a mystifying condition, which causes kids to become emotionally isolated from the world around them. Aspergers is higher functioning autism, meaning the symptoms are milder and...

Hi Mark A lot has happened since I last wrote you last. My son C___ phoned and said he wanted to come home. I went over to his place and he was cleaning up a bong to sell and the other kid Jeff was smoking up when I got there. I had gone over to talk to C___ about his request to my husband about moving home. I walked in on this and just lost it. I yelled at them and C___ was bawling his eyes out and Jeff quickly got out of there. C___. He told me that he is depressed and needed to come home. He came home just before C___tmas. The lady that signed the lease on the townhouse and the same lady that took him out of the rehab center requested that he sit at her table on C___tmas Eve with her family. Even though he knew that we have C___tmas Eve at my brother's place, off he went. She gave him $200 skateboard for C___tmas. He stills hangs around with her kids. The other night the older one who is grossly over weight phoned and said that he wanted to go running. It was really cold; I...

The paucity of attention paid to adolescent physical abuse towards mothers is indicated by the sparse literature on the topic. Clearly, there is an urgent need to conduct research into this aspect of family life. A research study will, therefore, be designed to explore the perspectives of mothers who experience adolescent physical abuse and to determine the direction for developing effective policies and services to address the needs of mothers and young people. Reviewing the literature-- Physical abuse within the family context is of concern as it exists within all cultures, family backgrounds, and socio-economic situations (Ministry of Social Development, 2002). The family physical abuse literature to date has primarily focused on intimate partner abuse and child abuse. Although now gaining greater attention, the issue of adolescent physical abuse towards their mothers has been a neglected area (Agnew & Huguley, 1989; Bobic, 2004; Cottrell & Monk, 2004; Eckstein, 2004; Peek, ...

Hello Mark ...thank you for the welcome e-mail, I just read thru the introduction and the first assignment and I’m already feeling empowered… I have been thru psychologists, psychiatrists, therapist, social workers and alternative medicine… and found no solutions, actually I think it has made matters worse, he uses his so called sickness as an excuse for his behavior. I ended up rewarding him for doing what he was supposed to do and not disciplining him for his bad behavior. I can’t get him to do anything without offering him a reward. I started taking him to the doctors when he was 5 years old and he is now 15. I’m afraid of what these next 3 years will bring my way. He will not do chores, homework, basically anything that I ask him to do. He constantly shows anger towards me and blames me for everything that goes wrong in his life. He is not accountable for his actions. He is currently failing in school. I have set-up a teachers conference today, asked the counselor to reach out to h...

Hi Mark, I just thought I'd give you an update. Our son A__ went out New Year's Eve and arrived home on January 3rd, 2009. He did call though, but we told him that he would have to come home or deal with the consequences (he had no medication or clothes). When he returned home (at 7:15am after partying all night wreaking of smoke and booze - and gasping for air because he is asthmatic and smokes and had no ventolin) we took away, the TV, computer, phone and we locked his bedroom door and made him sleep on a roll-away cot. He bitched and complained that we were doing damage to his back....oh, we also told him 3 square meals a day, no snacking, which was torture because he is 6'3 and eats a lot. Anyway, we went the full 3 days and it's over now. He was very thankful and appreciative to have his privileges back....so that's great!!! It was hard, but we did it. To be honest I broke down once, but then got back with the program (I let him eat something between m...

Hi Mark, I have run into a situation I don't really know what to do. I have a 13-year-old daughter and for the most your program is working great. My problem is she is almost too honest with me. She tells me everything. Two weeks ago I noticed her mood was horrible, I asked her if she was smoking pot? She got cranky and 20 minutes later she brings a bud of weed out of her room and told me to get rid of it. She told me where she got it and agrees to not go over there anymore, not happy about it, but accepted it. Now I let her go to another friends for a sleepover and they went to another friends house, she was offered ecstasy? She told me she refused it and so did the girl she went over there with, but the one girl did some. Now I said well, I guess you won't be going over there anymore, I explained I am glad she told me and was proud she made a good decision, now she says well, if that is what I get every time I am honest with you, I am not going to tell you what goe...

Hi J., == > I’ve responded throughout your email below: Hi Mark, I have 3 questions now with one being the most pressing. That is, do you see my son is going to accept the discipline based on the information I provided? == > Strong-willed, out-of-control children will rehabilitate themselves when they are ready, and not a minute sooner. They will change their behavior when – and only when – they choose to. The job of parents is not to get children to obey. It is to simply teach them that responsible behavior results in one sort of consequence while irresponsible behavior results in quite another. Oppositional, defiant kids refuse to accept this fundamental reality until they are forced to experience a significant degree of discomfort related to their poor choices. Discomfort comes from parents’ implementation of tough love – and unfortunately, tough love is often tougher on the parent than the child, especially if the parent has adopted an over-indulgent parenting style o...

Hi M., I’ve responded throughout your email below: Thanks for your response. I guess part of the problem is that there are so many issues and I am not sure which is most pressing. Long term, the biggest problems seem to be lying and disrespect. They are the most difficult for me to deal with. == >Please click here for info on lying: http://www.myoutofcontrolteen.com/lying.html ==> Re: disrespect. Refer to the strategy entitled “When You Want Something From Your Kid” [session #3 – online version]. When she lies, I do not always catch her. I suspect lying a lot, but even when I catch her red handed, she will manipulate and continue lying until the story is so long, I forget what we even started with. So many other times, I do not know if she is lying or not and if I can't verify, I don't feel justified in disciplining. She also lies to other people. If I hear a lie third hand and address it with her, she says it is not true. Therefore, I rarely end up disciplining w...

Mr Hutten, I have a question to ask but I feel I should give some background material first. My girlfriend and I have been living together for 5 years now. She has three sons two still live with us one has moved out on his own. The two living with us are 9 and 15. I have two sons one in college and a 15 year old. The reason for purchasing your study guide is for her 15 year old. When we moved in together (my home – in case it matters) we had issues with my 15 year (at the time 11), it lasted two weeks and everything collected itself back together. The house went along fine for quite some time. I coached her sons in little league, and tried to be the best I could for them. My son is more a computer nerd so it was nice to have kids interested in sports. Her kid’s father was never much in their lives with visits to him two to three times a year tops, and always with an issue when they would go there. Her ex is an alcoholic, and on occasion the 15 year old would catch him d...

Hello Mark, I am a Field Officer for the Department of Child Protection in Western Australia. I was searching the internet for resources to assist some of our families with parenting teenagers and came across your web site - can you please provide any additional details of the content of your online parenting program. Thank you Kind Regards Helen Ellery Field Officer Department for Child Protection Roebourne Ph: 91821208 Fax: 91821375 `````````````````````` Hi Helen, Online Parent Support (OPS) is a program designed specifically for parents of strong-willed or out-of-control adolescent children. OPS provides the practical and emotional support parents need to change destructive adolescent behavior. The straightforward, step-by-step action plans presented in the curriculum allow parents to take immediate steps toward preventing or intervening in their children's negative choices. Parents involved with OPS have the opportunity to experien...

R___ has now isolated herself in her room. She is not contacting friends. She insists that we have ruined / are ruining her life, and she will not talk to us. `````````````````````````````` Re: R__ has now isolated herself in her room. A child's bedroom is as much of a privilege as her bicycle. Thus, ground her FROM her room. The grounding can be immediately lifted as soon as she shows evidence that she will work on the behavior contract. Children always have something that they value -- even if that "something" is to simply do "nothing." Re: She is not contacting friends. She insists that we have ruined / are ruining her life, and as we said, she will not talk to us. Allow her to have her mad-time. Pouting takes a lot of energy. She will eventually grow tired of this "game" (and it is a game -- a game called "I'll pout and hide in my room until I get my way"). Remind her that you love her, and that she has your permission ...

What do I do with my 16-year-old son who continues to steal things from our home. He has stolen jewelry and pawned it. Of course he always denies that he did it, but I have found pieces of my jewelry hidden in his room. He has been caught stealing from cars. I told him we were going to start over this year and no longer bring up what he did in the past, thinking he has changed, but now there is one hundred dollars missing from my daughter which was a Christmas gift. Of course he denies taking it, but refused to show me his wallet. Any suggestions of how to deal with this and get past the fact I don't believe anything my son says? ``````````````````````````````` Hi M., Give him a warning that - the next time something comes up missing - the police will be called and you will file theft charges (this assumes that you will have some evidence that it was, in fact, your son who took the item in question). If he steals and you refuse to get authorities involved - it shows ...