ONLINE PARENTING COACH

Hi Mark, I have a son, N____, who is 6yrs and has been a great challenge for us as parents particularly from around the age of 1. He had very wild tantrums through the years quite often. Jumping to the present time I am grateful for the insight my friend and psychologist has given me about him. He informed me about ODD – oppositional defiant disorder and gave me website to check out. This brought me to you and I purchased your e-book and have been working my way through it. But I find it seems to be referring to older children, which may be connected as to why he is not responding to my attempts. He is extremely strong willed and determined to be in control. He is very defiant and rebellious and breaks the discipline. I admit I have not been so good at keeping emotion out of my responses to him or not arguing with him. But we are at crisis point and don’t know what to do. We changed track with him the other night when my husband put him to bed early without dinner! He hated t...

Mark: We just signed up for your program today and wonder where you have been for these past two turbulent years. Our son is a 14 year old freshman. He is very gifted academically (has tested in 90thpercentile on all standardized tests and qualified for honors classes). He is also gifted in the arts and music. For most of his 14 years we have not had major problems. Matthew was adopted at birth and diagnosed with ADD in 4th grade. He has been seeing therapists for the past two years, because he began displaying depression, self-cutting, and defiance. He takes Adderall and Lexapro. Matthew's new defiance is to refuse to do his homework. We have tried bribing, threatening, ignoring, and begging. We have attached his requests for a privilege (ie: going to a friends) to completion of his homework. He chooses not to socialize with friends as oppose to doing homework. We have sat and watched an "A" student turn into a "C-D" student and this semester is carryi...

Podcast Segment on ODD, Mark Hutten, M.A. Parenting Children with ODD

Mr. Hutten, I am a Preschool Teacher that has a 4 year old student that has been diagnosed with ODD. I was wondering if you could help me with any suggestions in helping this child. I use the Parenting with Love and Logic on this child and believe in giving him choices so that he feels he is still in control, of course I am happy with the two choices that I give him, but would appreciate any other suggestions in helping this child. Thank you, Penny ```````````````````````````````` Hi Penny, Here is an e-Book on Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), Conduct Disorder (CD), and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) by my colleague Jim Chandler, MD. He works on the pharmaceutical side of intervention, whereas I work on the behavioral modification side. ==> CLICK HERE to go to the e-Book.

I have a question about grounding. Lets say I ground Dylan from his ps2 for 3 days for being sent to alternative school. So I take the controllers and he continues to act out and mouth off (because its BS he cant use his ps2 cause he did NOTHING wrong-naturally). I can restart the 3 days for each time he acts out but truly we would be up to 45days of no ps2 before the first 3 days is even up. Dylan accepts no punishment generally. Because well he has never done anything wrong and everyone is out to get him. So in reference to earning his way out do I say well you re up to 45 days of no ps2 because of your actions and your mouthing off but if you will talk to me and your teachers with respect for the next 3 days you will earn your ps2 back in 3 days? I dont get it but I want to. Because "I" could never survive the 45 days of grounded and he knows it. Its not realistic and I feel like the lesson of you cant yell and cuss at the teacher is so far off from where it started and ...

“I have a stepchild who is 13 years old and has tantrums that can last for hours. There are 6 other siblings in the house and this can be exhausting. Last night, his tantrum or fit lasted 3 hours. His father sent him outside and we told him he could come back in and finish his homework when he finished his fit. The yelling and screaming and pushing the doorbell and the horn in the truck was just part of it.” It is much easier to prevent temper tantrums than it is to manage them once they have erupted. Here are some tips for preventing temper tantrums and some things you can say: Avoid boredom. Say, “You have been working for a long time. Let’s take a break and do something fun.” Change environments, thus removing the child from the source of the temper tantrum. Say, “Let’s go for a walk.” Choose your battles. Teach children how to make a request without a temper tantrum and then honor the request. Say, “Try asking for that toy nicely and I’ll get it for you.” Create a safe env...

Dear Mark: I'm sure you must be told this often, but I have to say thank you. I have been listening to and reading the material provided in your out-of-control child site and feel a very heavy burden has been lifted from my shoulders. Last evening I literally cried my eyes out, not knowing what to do in regard to my daughter. She is 15, has an IQ of 144, is very intelligent and thinks I am a poor excuse for a parent. My rules are stupid, my choices are insane ... and all I'm trying to do is help her see that balance is an issue in her life and am trying to influence her so that she might choose not to run herself into the ground as she does everything for everyone around her but completely discounts her family. She transmits and receives over 6000 text messages a month, yet couldn't tell you two things about the weekly lives of her younger brother, her stepfather or her mother. My approach to her has not worked. I am a textbook example of everything I have read to...

Hi Mark First off I would like to explain a little about the home life...I am a single mom. We are living with my mom, to help her out as she has Parkinson's. I am suffering from nerve damage in my neck & am having lots of issues with pain...& being a mom right now is challenging without having a difficult child. We live in a small town, my daughter A__ (15), was being seen by the only child psychologist around here... it didn't work out. The psych was trying to turn A___ into a V___ & A___ wouldn't open up to her, instead the counselor would answer questions for her. So we are w/o counseling except for the school psych who sees her once a week. Anyways, I am on some pretty heavy pain medicine, which is not making any of this easier. I am trying my hardest. My concern is this....last night I had a really bad night & had to leave my 18 year old up & in charge...I had to go to bed. When I got up this morning, we had found that A___ had been looking up Wicc...

Dear Mark, I've been reading your e-book, My Out-of-Control Teen, and I've gotten some good ideas already. One thing that I'm not sure how to handle is taking away things as a discipline. Our 16-year-old son has a computer and video games that he bought himself with money that he earned at his part-time job. When we threaten to take these away from him, he says we can't because he paid for them. How should we handle this? Thank you for your help. S.D. ``````````````````````````````````` Hi S., First of all, here's the link to the page of the eBook that most applies: Look for the section entitled ==> When You Want Something From Your Kid Secondly, if he EARNED his computer and games, then you shouldn't take those items away as part of discipline; however, he does live in your house ...and you pay for the electricity. So, in using the strategy in the section listed above, you can add one caveat: Issue a warning by saying to him, "If you choose to __...

Dear Mark- I purchased your program and at the part that is basically saying, eat dinner with them and tell them good night. The program says not to skip and to read it step by step -which is fine but in the meantime things are not good! Truly at home my son is pretty good (now that I have a boyfriend that will not take his crap) but at school he is a TERROR. I get calls from the office daily. Today he stole a drink in the cafeteria then when caught shoved it across the table getting it all over another student, threatened to beat up the kid that told on him and cussed out the Principal. Well he is expelled from school for 10 days now. But this type stuff goes on *every single day*. I take away his ps2, ground him from tv- which makes him all sad and but it is not helping the behavior at school- he acts DEVASTATED every time he gets in trouble that he just cant believe it all happened and knows he is going to be in trouble and is very upset about being in trouble - yet the behavior c...

I have one question for you, if you could help me out on this: right now, my 16-yr old daughter was given an ultimatum (from me) that she had to live with her dad for a cooling off period of two weeks, without a cellphone, because she was destroying some internal house property, as well as becoming threatening to me, totally disregarding curfew, swearing at me, etc. I notice in your book you recommend a 3-day punishment period only. My daughter’s deal was that at the end of the 2-wk cooling off period, assuming she could agree to a basic contract of respectful behaviour, we’d try it again (ie. I have her at home). It’s only been in effect since Monday. Do you think my 2-week period for her is too long? (assuming she agrees to the contract earlier? What if she doesn’t agree?). With all her behavioural problems, she has still gotten decent marks at school (despite a number of absences), as well as she holds down a good little part-time job (which unfortunately I think enables her to ...

Mark-- I'm a mom, high school teacher, and foster mom. I love working with "out of control" kids, which is why I bought your ebook. While my house is perfectly peaceful, I wanted to know what to tell my students' parents when they ask me what to do. I had to read the book before I could recommend it. I've read only a part of it, but I know already that I will be assigning your book for parent homework! My question, though, is more self-serving. I've been in education for 14 years and am certified in 5 areas including special education. I am led to work with more troubled kids. I want to work in juvenile justice, and although I've applied week after week for the past 2 years, I've received no acknowledgment of my application. Having read the job qualifications and preferred candidate profiles, I know I would be an asset. Further, I've read news paper articles discussing the shortage in this field. Can you give me some idea how to "b...