ONLINE PARENTING COACH

Hi Mark, I have written to you about my daughter. I have read your book and listened to the audio. I tried to get my husband to listen one night, we only got through a couple of chapters. We haven't had the time (or he hasn't mentioned it again), to finish it. I can tell he is a little skeptical of the techniques (picking battles and letting things "slide"). I have tried telling him what it is all about and he seems open to listening but like I said has not pursued listening to the rest of it. Anyway, an argument broke out last night because of her attitude and being disrespectful to her stepbrother (his son). She ended up say the "F" word several times. This word has been "slipping" out of her mouth a lot lately. I have chosen to ignore it most of the time, she is usually yelling it as she walks away (which walking away is progress for her). He does not understand this and refuses to let her talk that way, he yells at her and makes thre...

Hi Mark, I'm the step-father of two teenage boys, ages 17 and 15. Their mom and I have been married for 5 years. Both boys decided that they weren't interested in academics (duh) and began failing their classes. We pulled them from public school and put then into on-line school. Even with the reduced studying demands they continue to perform poorly. A___ routinely ignores his curfew and C___ has a significant problem with truthfulness. Both are in trouble with the authorities. I have 3 court dates this month alone. His mom and I have been working on the 3-day-grounding rule, but even that gets ignored. We need to have some sort of significant wake-up call that doesn't alienate them. I told their mom that a few days or months behind bars might be just what they need -- she's concerned that they'll just increase in their poor behavioral choices. Any suggestions?     ``````````````````    Hi S., You’ve raised 5 issues: poor academic performance, curfew viol...

Hello mark-- Just a question of how to handle something!! My oldest daughter, who is 18, ready to graduate next week, I have wrote to you many times about, LOL!! …anyways, we went on vacation and she was left at home and I requested no parties at my house and no alcohol to be brought into the house. We got home yesterday and it is obvious that there was a party, empty containers, she says aren't hers and that she had a friend over that may have left it there? What should we do??? I am so fed up? P.    `````````````````````    Unfortunately, you don’t have any evidence that she is NOT telling the truth. Thus, I don’t think you can legitimately issue a consequence.    Mark 

Good afternoon Mark, I am a new addition to your website and have purchased and downloaded your information. I haven't read through the materials yet, but wanted to ask your opinion on the situation going on in my household. I am at a loss at what to do. My 17 year old son and I have always gotten along and he's always been very honest with me. Earlier this year he had started using marijuana, and had tried a handful of other drugs. He told me about this on his own. I told him I did not approve of his use, but appreciated his honesty with me. He and I have since had various conversations about his drug use, and my wish for him to stop. I have never punished him for what he has told me, because I thought that would result in him not telling me anything. Well, in late March he was caught at school with a very small amount of pot (I know, any amount is to much). He was suspended from school for three weeks. We got through that, and he's back at school - with the c...

Mark- We are beside ourselves. Our daughter, and I am a stepmother to her, so she doesn't feel that I have a place in her life except that I am married to her dad. She lives with us. Although she hates coming home because it is so far away from her friends. She takes off, has her friends pick her up from here even when we tell her she is a "runaway". She stays out at friends' homes for days without telling us where she is. Her favorite saying is "f... y..". She is disrespectful to her dad.    She was picked up by the police this weekend because she was in a car with a friend who had a gun and drugs. We don't know what to do with her. We are considering sending her to a camp for troubled teens. Can you please provide us with some advise? If we say white, she says black. If we say left, she says right. It doesn't matter what our approach is, she always contradicts it. We are definitely in trouble here and need advise. We believe she is...

Mark, My daughter is 14 and she lies ALL the time. Back in March my cell phone was lost. I looked for a week and she even helped me look for it. I had convinced myself it had fallen out of my purse and into my trash in my van and I had thrown it away. In the mean time I bought a new cell phone at $300 because my contract was not up. On mothers day we had taken my parents out for ice cream. I specifically remember putting my phone in my purse in its holder. Well my daughter had gotten into trouble earlier that day. She had gotten a phone call and my husband had told her she had 5 minutes on the phone.    She used her 5 minutes and he asked her to get off the phone (land line). Well she decided she needed to get something out of the living quarters of our horse trailer. She put her heavy coat on and just as sweet as pie goes past my husband just a talking up a storm. Which is VERY unusual right now because we are not anything she wants to talk to OR hang out with. ...

Mark, Thanks so much for responding so quickly, and for the validation. I'd been feeling like the Mom from Hell, and seeing "there you go doubting yourself again" made me find some humor in the situation (that has been a hard part of the assignment)! It's good to hear that I didn't do anything wrong with her friends. I had lost perspective - there's no law against what I did. You won't be surprised to hear that there was no phone call from the school. Actually, I doubted that they complained at all - if they could put two brain cells together, they'd figure out that, if anyone from the school asked why I did it, they would hear about underage drinking and pot smoking and sexual activity on prom night between 18 year olds and minors. Not what they wanted!    The counselor isn't falling for her tantrums - she just said what you did, keep an eye on her [queen]. Next time, I'll do like I did with toddler tantrums, let it run its course and...

Hi Mark, You provide some 'gov grants' info on your site. How realistic is it for a single mom, for example, to actually receive a free grant? `````````````` It all depends on what kind of grant you're looking for and whether or not you represent a non-profit organization. Free government grants are funded in one of two ways: (a) the money comes from the taxes we pay and (b) from private foundations that must give five percent of their assets to stay tax-exempt. Gurus, companies, and others out to make a quick dollar will try to reel you in and get you to buy their information on free grants. This information is already free and readily available to the public. Do NOT pay to receive this information. While the government does give farming, housing, business, college, education, and house building grants, these grants are given to non-profit organizations that help people -- they are not given to individuals. An individual grant is more likely to involve food...

Dear Mark, Just committing to your rules but finding it difficult in this area: I have grounded my child for three days, he doesn’t care, walks out the house. I ground him when he comes home. Doesn’t care and doesn’t do the grounding. So I disciplined him for 3 days, no unsupervised TV, no music in his room. Doesn’t care and doesn’t care – his attitude is beginning to drive me crazy. Very insolent, but I have managed to keep my temper (so far). He is caught up with this girl who has no rules whatsoever in her home, both parents working full time and little supervision. She comes from a very argumentative home and she relays how unhappy she is at home and she wants to run away. My child is an immature young fella (13) at the best of times, but he is listening so closely to her and bringing her attitude right back. She has him hooked. What should I do?!!!! Thanking you loads in advance, Marie    `````````````````````    The recommendation will depend on w...

With a bit of detective work, I found out that my daughter is planning on vomiting at school, going to the nurse, getting dismissed, and saying "my mom's at work, here is my brother's number" and giving the boyfriend's cell. (She doesn't have a brother). I called the school to make sure that I or the three others on my list are the only people she can be released to, and that they call no other numbers.     >>>>>>>>>>>>>> This is a great example of the ‘detective work’ that I wish more parents would engage in ongoing.       >>>>>>>> So are you saying I should be a snoop?       >>>>>>>> YES …YES …and YES! Parents of ‘out of control’ teens have been deceived and tricked more than they’ll ever know. DO NOT believe ANYTHING your kid tells you (as in 0%). Verify EVERYTHING – and snoop.     Do you think I should print out and send the laws regarding ...

Mark, Thanks for your responses. Re: the boyfriend - things changed quickly in a short time. He broke up with her (he said because she told him she was 15 when she hadn't turned 15 yet), and she was devastated, then they "made up" and are "friends" – but from monitoring her myspace, I found out that what she has in mind is "friends with benefits". So I'm going to continue with the restrictions you suggested. But I wondered about allowing her to go to his house, since I found out that his parents provide no supervision (or aren't there at all), and they have done everything short of having sex there. She refuses to bring him here, or to have me drive her to Subway to meet him. So given the choice of seeing him with my restrictions, or not at all, she hasn't been seeing him. She is enraged over that and announces that she will sneak off and see him anyway. What do I do if this happens, besides 3 days discipline? She says that if I ...

Mark, I had a client of mine bring me an article that you might find very interesting. I always view herbal type remedies with caution, but this one catches my eye. It was in ‘Canadian Living’, June issue about Empowerplus and bipolar disorder. If you go to www.truehope.com you can read about what started Empowerplus and success stories. Interesting enough I have 2 girls with PCOS which can lead to Type 2 bipolar, and I have a daughter who has developed signs of this. I also almost lost a 25 year old brother last year who they were treating for irritable bowel syndrome, which turned out to be colitis. He was told this runs in families and someone else in the family must have it. What I get from this article is that lack of nutrients and minerals could be causing bipolar disorder in some individuals. When I look at my family history of possible bipolar with a family history of colitis... could there be a link. Wouldn't it be interesting to see our family history all along cou...

Dear Mark, Right now I'm looking for a different kind of help. I've done foster care for years, approx. 17 years and have adopted 4 children and had 2 biological. We've had about 100 children go thru our house over the years and I thought I had dealt with almost everything until my latest challenge. She is now 13 years old. She has been with us since she is a year old. Approx. 3 years ago she became very defiant, which has gotten worse and has even been physically reactive at times only to immediate family. She is very rude, sarcastic and enjoys annoying people and non-compliant with almost all rules. She does well at school, she's in accelerated classes and very athletic and talented. I had her see a psychiatrist 2 1/2 years ago and he diagnosed her with ODD, depression, and attachment issues. He prescribed medicine for the depression and she did try 2 - 3 pills and then refused to take it because they made her feel funny. She was in counseling at ...

Dear Mark, Right now I'm looking for a different kind of help. I've done foster care for years, approx. 17 years and have adopted 4 children and had 2 biological. We've had about 100 children go thru our house over the years and I thought I had dealt with almost everything until my latest challenge. She is now 13 years old. She has been with us since she is a year old. Approx. 3 years ago she became very defiant, which has gotten worse and has even been physically reactive at times only to immediate family. She is very rude, sarcastic and enjoys annoying people and non-compliant with almost all rules. She does well at school, she's in accelerated classes and very athletic and talented. I had her see a psychiatrist 2 1/2 years ago and he diagnosed her with ODD, depression, and attachment issues. He prescribed medicine for the depression and she did try 2 - 3 pills and then refused to take it because they made her feel funny. She was in c...

Hi Mark, I was the mother who had the question about my 18 year old. I did purchase your ebook and read it cover to cover yesterday. We are the parents who ended up kicking our daughter out because of lack of respect. She kept going out and would not call to let us know where she was even though we asked her time and time again. She would sleep over at a friend’s house 2-3 times in one weekend to get out of her curfew. We would ask her to help out around the house and gave her specific chores, but they were never done. We do not believe a word she says. She has started dating a kid who she dated in the past and he has treated her poorly. He is a very jealous kid and we do not condone her seeing him. Since we kicked her out, we have found out that she has lied to us again. I know that we have to confront her about this lie and she has to pay the consequence. She lied about going on a field trip for school, which we paid for. She ended up skipping school that da...

Three teenagers face felony charges for allegedly hacking into their school computer system to "fix" grades — not for themselves but for friends. The 16-year-olds are enrolled in advanced computer classes at Bay High School, and sheriff's investigator Paul Vecker said they didn't need to change their own grades. "These are three young men who are quite intelligent," he said. Vecker said they mostly changed friends' grades by small increments to avoid notice. However, they allegedly made a big change for one junior, who reportedly would've failed if her grade hadn't been changed from an F to a B, investigators said. The school contacted the Bay County sheriff's office on Thursday. One of the teens is charged with offense against intellectual property and the other two face charges of being principal to offense against intellectual property.  A county juvenile detention supervisor said Saturday he couldn't say if ...

Mark, Thanks. A quick update -- I wrote four house rules and gave the paper to her (I'll add more rules later but thought I'd keep it simple for now). 1. Bedtime 11:00 pm. 2. Two hours limit on internet time, no computer after 10:00 pm. 3. No going off with friends without permission - no exceptions - and must obey curfew. 4. No seeing boyfriend without direct supervision. Not following the above entails 3 days grounding. Violating grounding entails additional consequences (which I didn't specify - in the long term I'm thinking of no drivers' license at 16 and no JROTC next year if her behavior doesn't change). What do you think? >>>>>>>>>>>>> I’m not sure the self-reliance concept is sinking in. Will withholding JROTC and a driver’s license foster the development of self-reliance or dependency? Answer: Dependency. Thus: Bad decision. >>>>>>>>>>> Just stick with the 3-day-di...

  Hi Mark, I downloaded your e-book last night, read the whole book and the first week's part twice, and I'm ready to implement these techniques. Right now, I hope it's not too late, because my daughter and I are in a crisis situation. I desperately need the help you're offering via OPS! Here's the situation (it's complicated). She just turned 15 year and, up until recently, she has been a good kid. She makes straight A's in school (and she takes gifted level and one AP class) except for math; however, I should have seen trouble coming when she became increasingly disrespectful and defiant - up till recently, her defiance has involved not going to bed when she should and refusing to get off the internet. She is sometimes up till 1 or 2 am, including on school nights. It's hard to say what my toughest parenting challenge is. Between her suicide threats, defiance, and yelling and cursing and recent drinking and sexual activity I don't kn...