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 ...