ONLINE PARENTING COACH

Hi Mark, I have a question on consequences. Scenerio: Older daughter (S__) with drivers permit is going to drive our family home from dinner. Younger child (B___ - 13) runs and jumps into the front seat refusing to allow her sister to drive home. If we handled it correctly here's our question. First we would say, please get into the back seat (to B___). If she then does not and keeps yelling or refusing then we say, "If you don't get into the backseat then you will be choosing a consequence of not using your computer for one day." Then still refusing we say, "Your consequence does not begin until you sit quietly in the backseat." Still refusing.....This is our question. Here we have said that her consequence doesn't begin until she gets in the backseat, but she hasn't budged. So, do we increase the consequence (length or taking away more things, i.e. changing the consequence) or do we continue to sit in the parking lot while she is screaming a...

Hi Mark, Thank you very much for taking time and reading my story. The question that I have is if you think we did the right thing by telling her that if she made a choice to leave home then she has to live with that and there is no coming back at least for now. It feels right to me but I am getting hammered by my parents who scream and yell that it is all too harsh and I am a bad mother. ==> The first part is O.K. But I would let her know that your door is always open – as long as she is willing to abide by your house rules. The other thing we told her that if she chose to use her biological father as a leverage to get all things her way, we wish her luck and we are not supporting her financially at all, that she is on her own. ==> This is on track! The third question is what is your opinion based on your experience and what you read about our daughter on chances that she will change. The worst fear I have now that she is grown into person with very low mora...

Hi Mark Thanks for the help and advice you gave me. I did go to the police after my son took that car when I was on holidays. The police would not lay charges because the kid had gone out for 5 mins. and the neighbour called him on the cell phone and told him to get the car right back now! The police told me because they did not have to look for the car they weren't going to do anything. I asked them to come and talk to him then, and they told me that scare tactics like that really don't work with kids any more. The system here sucks. My son is on drugs and he did come home higher then a kite and abusive to me, the one night he didn't come home at all and was at the mall at 2:00 a.m. in the morning and I called him and said that he was to get home and he said that he was not. He came home that morning and slept for 26 hours. The next night I told him that things were going to change etc. like the program talks about, that night he went out I told him to be back...

G'day I just joined/purchased and have commenced reading through. I find that each page says 'Instructional video #1" etc, but I cannot find any instructional video. Would you please let me know what I need to do to change in my settings. Ta, P. `````````````````````````````` Hi P., You had me worried there for a minute. I checked ...and the videos are still there. Does your computer run slow perhaps? Mark ``````````````````````````````` G'day Mark, I have attached screen shots of the first page and the introduction page. As you will see there is a big gap in the beginning of the introduction page that I am assuming is where the video is - this is the same for all the other pages as well. Any suggestions? Cheers, P. :o) ```````````````````````````````` Hi P., If you have a slow computer, the videos may take awhile to load. Here are some suggestions that may speed things up a bit: 1. First, try rebooting your computer (i.e., turn it off, then back o...

Hi T. and T., == > I’ve responded throughout your email below: Mark, You seem to be the person with the most sound advice, so we are writing to you again. Our 16 year old has continued to escalate his out of control behavior. We have removed the privilege of having a private bedroom, as recommended, and we have a space for him on a couch. We locked up his room, and we removed all of his attitude clothing and gadgets. He basically has an alarm clock, his school clothes, food, water, and normal household items. There is a posted note on his door telling him simply (and precisely) what he needs to do to get this stuff back. He needs to comply to a three day grounding and avoid swearing and profanity towards his parents. Pretty straight forward, and we even took the time to read it with our best poker faces. == > O.K. So far …so good. He has kicked in the door to his room to get some stuff (we didn't have most of his items there), he leaves and comes back after ...

Hi Mark, I have purchased your e-guide online parenting techniques and I have applied some of your methods. Though it is difficult to do at first without being angry and not reacting to my 13 yr old daughter rebellious act, but I must say she has improved slowly. Thanks for the guidance! I would never thought of talking to her in a calmer way before. I was always angry at her when she didn't want to go to school and when she stays up way late at night sometime doesn't even have a wink and she decided to sleep during the day made me even furious. Every action she made, I responded with my anger and hence she branded me as the "Lady nagger of the house". I do deserve that name-calling, now that I realized my mistakes was not able to communicate effectively with her and not being able to express and explain things when I should have. I'm a single mom. The care & control is given to my ex husband for both of my children. My daughter had a fall out with him...

Hi Mark, It is the 2 nd week of school and my kid already has missing assignments and has a D- and an F in two of her classes. I am not saying anything about it. She is doing her chores and her attitude is okay. My problem is this….she has made the freshmen volleyball team. It will cost me $250 for her to continue to play. I feel it is really important for her to play, it keeps her busy. She obviously is going to get kicked off of the team for her bad grades; she needs to maintain a 2.0 to play. I had told her previously (before I read your book) that if she doesn’t play she could lose any or all privileges. I don’t feel it is fair for us to pay that kind of money for her to play for a couple more weeks and for her not to have any consequences. Do you have any suggestions for me? Thanks! W. ````````````````` Hi W., A kid can earn privileges at home as well as school. Sports are school privileges that are earned by maintaining a minimum grade point a...

Dear Mr. Hutten, It's been awhile since my last e-mail. My son M__ is 17 1/2. He's quit 2 jobs over the last 6 months, but has a car. I've told him that he at least needs to have a job 1 weekend day . I think he should at least put gas in it himself. He is a senior this year and plays soccer now and hockey all winter until March. He has no interest in working at all and keeps asking for money. Per your advice I have stopped with the handouts. I've told him pay for gas or park the car- Why do I feel so guilty ? I can't get him motivated to do anything, but I also know that he needs to motivate himself. He can be extremely charming until he hears no, that turns to the "whatever" mentality. What else can I do ? Looking forward to your response, M. P.S. I've intituted an 11:00 pm curfew and no more sleepovers-nothing good comes from teenage boys up all night !! I've stuck to both and probably couldn't have done this without you- y...

Q: i am 27 yrs old mom of a 5 yrs-old boy who really, i may say a d d i c t e d to c o m p u t e r games. Im worried about him coz he shows no i n t e r e s t in going to school. Aside from that at home he becomes d e s t r u c t i v e e v e r y t i m e we stop him from doing or getting what he wants. At the age of five he is lazy in writing and doing school work. But i believe that my child is smart and can be an outstanding student if only we could m o t i v a t e him. ````````````````````` A: Computers, video games, and the Internet have become entrenched features of our daily lives. Computer use has reached beyond work and is now a major source of fun and entertainment for many people. For most people, computer use and video game play is integrated into their lives in a balanced healthy manner. For others, time spent on the computer or video game is out of balance, and has displaced work, school, friends, and even family. When time spent on the computer, playing video games or...

Mark, My husband and I have been taking your online course and it has been very helpful. Our son is about to turn 18 and has all but dropped out of school. We feel that our next step should be to give him a few choices: either he goes to school regularly or gets a job by the time he turns 18 or he’ll have to move into our garage. If he moves into the garage, we won’t support him in any way except to provide food and a garage couch for him to sleep on. He won’t be allowed in the house except to use the bathroom. If we actually kick him out of the house now, I’m sure he’ll just get into more trouble. I know eventually it may come that, but the garage is my last step before kicking out. Does this make good sense to you? Do you have any other recommendations? Thanks so much for your input. K. Click here for my response...

On the rewards idea for a middle school s t u d e n t : On the final report card: Is giving them $$50 for each A and $$25 for each B too much? `````````````````````````````````````````` Actually, I don't recommend paying kids for good grades at all. Once you start down this slippery slope, you have to keep raising the stakes. And once kids get old enough to earn their own money, you lose leverage. Not to mention that this kind of deal doesn't always work. Child psychologist Sylvia Rimm points out that for high-achieving students, money doesn't matter. And, Rimm says, kids who are underachievers fail because they're inconsistent. So if they slip and get a poor grade, they figure that they're not going to get the reward and give up. Even worse, parents sometimes end up paying them for half measures and the system backfires. In my experience, paying a compliment is better than paying cash. Reward good grades -- or consistent effort -- by giving your kids a hug,...

Hi Mark First of all thank you for your programme – from my (albeit limited!) experience we are finding it well constructed, full of common sense and very supportive. I have a question of how to deal with an aspect of my child’s behaviour in this fairly early stage of the programme: We are implementing Week 2 (we started 3 weeks ago but my daughter was away for most of last week). Z__ is the 2 nd of 3 girls. The eldest is nearly 14, Z__ is 11, and her younger sister is nearly 8. For a number of years we have gone through periods of time where Z__’s behaviour has been very difficult. She gets very angry and frustrated when things don’t go her own way, and we have put it down to “middle child syndrome”, although (of course!) we try to treat them all very even-handedly. As these phases have come and gone, we have not taken much action to try to amend our own behaviour. Of course we have tried to analyse why the dynamic has been so difficult. Our eldest child has never been difficul...