ONLINE PARENTING COACH

Hi Mark, Just wanted to thank you for this web site, it pretty much saved my relationship with my 16 year old son. We went from arguing, fighting and a final physical confrontation to him giving me a hug and telling me he loves me every morning before he leaves for school. It's been a year since our last argument. You're my hero! Lee Michaelis, DDS Online Parent Support

Mark, I just wanted to follow up to let you know that your program is spot-on! I am just starting Session 3 in your materials and using the suggestions in my household with my 14 year old twins. They are blown away with my lack of engagement with their verbal attacks, behaviors and disrespect. I'm following your advice and using my words and actions carefully, as well as being consistent, and they are totally confused as to what happened to me. I simply refuse to let them get me angry or engage in their misbehavior; then I talk to them about consequences of continued behavior. It took several days of me calmly repeating myself with these new rules, one of them is getting it right away while the other is a bit more resistant but is coming to realize that she can't push my buttons anymore. Thank you so much for making this program so affordable and supportive for the parent!!! I think we will make it through the next four years in a much calmer household. D.B. Online Parent Suppo...

Our 17 yr old daughter won't stop smoking pot – which she does daily to get through school. We have taken away privileges. Do we just ignore and ask her to leave once she's 18? ````````````````````````````````````````` This is a tricky subject and different for every family, but I truly believe that every teenager who wants to get marijuana, can. Therefore, I always tell moms & dads, it is extremely difficult to try to shield a teenager today from being exposed to marijuana because it is so prominent. I believe parents, and what I do with many of my clients, need to spend their efforts trying to equip teenagers to make the right choices, so when they are exposed to it, they will choose not to get high. No matter how strict a curfew you have, how often you drug test your teenagers, or whether they are an athlete, a scholar or a jock, your teenager will always find a way to use marijuana if they want to. They key is making sure they do not want to. 1...

My name is L___ and I just want to thank you for your website that I stumbled upon while doing research on Reactive Attachment Disorder. Your column "ask the parent coach" was like reading about my family's life story the last 9 months. I have found a lot of websites on this disorder but yours really hit home for me. We have a child that has been with us for 9 months that we were getting ready to adopt but have since decided that we do not have the capacity or time commitment to care for him. He was diagnosed with RAD by a school counselor recently and shows every sign of RAD except cruelty to animals. The more research I have done, the more I understand this disorder and the severity this boy has (he is 7). With 3 other young children, we have come to the conclusion that we can't commit to years of therapy without the rest of the family suffering in some way. We know his family and he was taken away at the hospital and put into foster care for 3 months becaus...

Who would you call for help if your 15-year-old teenager becomes so out-of-control with violent outbursts that it leads him to going after his parent with a knife? • Child Protective Services? • Crisis Hot Lines? • Doctors? • Mental Health? • Support Groups? • The Police? • Therapists? Try and imagine feeling more like a prisoner then a parent with your teenager, because no one can handle your teenager not even school, so you home school. Try spending thousands of dollars and going everywhere you can to find a cure, support, the newest medication, therapy, clinic, diet, only to realize your teenager is getting older, bigger and the violence is getting worst. Try to imagine being scared of your own minor child (not teen) at times and there is NO WHERE TO TURN FOR HELP! Try to imagine knowing if you try to escape, you can go to jail for “child abandonment” when you always want to be there for you teenager, however you can’t control them and need to be sa...

Here are three examples of how Oppositional Defiant Disorder [ODD] looks across ages. These examples stress some of the common features of ODD: Pre-school Shelby— Shelby is now 4 years old. Her parents were very excited when she turned four that perhaps that would mean that the terrible twos were finally over. They were not. Her parents are very grateful that the Grandparents are nearby. The grandparents are grateful that Shelby's aunts and uncles live nearby. Shelby's Aunt is grateful that this is her niece, not her daughter. Why? Shelby requires an incredible combination of strength, patience, and endurance. Shelby begins her day by getting up early and making noise. Her father unfortunately has mentioned how much this bothers him. So she turns on the TV, or if that has been mysteriously disconnected, bangs things around until her parents come out. Breakfast is the first battleground of the day. Shelby does not like what is being served once it is placed in fron...

ODD is the most common psychiatric problem in kids. Over 5% of kids have this. In younger kids it is more common in males than females, but as they grow older, the rate is the same in males and females. It is exceptionally rare for a psychiatrist to see a youngster with only ODD. Usually the youngster has some other neuropsychiatric disorder along with ODD. The tendency for disorders in medicine to occur together is called co-morbidity. Understanding co-morbidity in pediatric psychiatry is one of the most important areas of research at this moment. If a youngster comes to a clinic and is diagnosed with ADHD, about 30-40% of the time the youngster will also have ODD. ==> My Out-of-Control Child

Hi Mark, It's been a long time since we were last in touch. I'm afraid the relationship between my son and us has completely broken down. We've left London and now live in Leeds, my son K__ didn't want to come with us, so he stayed with his grandmother who has served to cause further damage between us. We've recently started living with one of my husband's two sons, J__. I was really pleased to be living with him, but he has brought an entirely different problem to us: He steals. From his family. So far he has stolen from four of his cousins and from my mother. He was living with my sister-in-law for a while before my husband and I were able to move to Leeds at the beginning of June. Within three weeks of living with her he had stolen over £100 - he is only twelve years old. He lies and doesn't care about the pain and upset he causes, he will just deny that he has stolen anything for months on end. When he finally admitted to stealing from his au...

No one knows for certain. The usual pattern is for problems to begin between ages 1-3. If you think about it, a lot of these behaviors are normal at age 2, but in ODD, they never go away. ODD does run in families. If a father is alcoholic and has been in trouble with the law, his child is almost three times as likely to have ODD (18% of kids will have ODD if the parent is alcoholic and has been in trouble with the law). ODD is diagnosed in the same way as many other psychiatric disorders in kids. You need to examine the child, talk with him, talk to the parents, and review the medical history. Sometimes other medical tests are necessary to make sure it is not something else. You always need to check kids out for other psychiatric disorders, because it is common for kids with ODD to have other problems, too. My Out-of-Control Child

OPPOSITIONAL DEFIANT DISORDER is a psychiatric disorder that is characterized by two different sets of problems. These are aggressiveness and a tendency to purposefully bother and irritate others. It is often the reason that people seek treatment. When OPPOSITIONAL DEFIANT DISORDER is present with ADHD, depression, tourette's, anxiety disorders, or other neuropsychiatric disorders, it makes life with that child far more difficult. For Example, ADHD plus OPPOSITIONAL DEFIANT DISORDER is much worse than ADHD alone, often enough to make people seek treatment. The criteria for OPPOSITIONAL DEFIANT DISORDER are: A pattern of negativistic, hostile, and defiant behavior lasting at least six months during which four or more of the following are present: • is often angry and resentful • is often spiteful and vindictive • is often touchy or easily annoyed by others • often actively defies or refuses to comply with adults' requests or rules • often argues with adults • often blames others...

Family ties are one of the strongest contributors to individual character development. Many of us spend years trying to understand, erase, or copy the influence of our family unit. When Rage is part of a family's tradition, it spreads itself much like a virus to future generations. The wider the spread, the more difficult the Rage is to contain. The effect of Rage in families is usually apparent in the way that members relate with one another. Our earliest experiences communicating and relating to others occurs within the family. Patterns of Rage in relationships are then taken and recreated in later relationships outside the family. Thankfully, a committed, well-designed treatment plan can repair the damage of having been raised in an hostile family system. Rage in Relationships— Rage is one of the most common negative patterns in relationships. Couples sometimes report that it is their Rage that makes the relationship feel alive. Rage takes root in insecure relationships where op...

"I need information on how to potty training my son. He will soon be five years old. 99% of the time he will use the toilet to urinate. But he will not use the toilet to have a bowel movement. He said he doesn’t want to. I have started taking his toys away from him and trying not to spank him. I am raising my son all by myself. His father hasn't been in his life since he was a baby. My son father wasn't potty trained until he was four and he was very strong will also. I do not have enough emotion support and I have not been very social. These issues could be major factors that have lead to his potty training problems. Please send me any advice you have on this situation" ````````````````````````````````````````` Your child obviously has bowel control and is very close to being completely potty trained. However, he is uncomfortable sitting on the potty and going number 2, which probably relates to constipation. Sometime in the past when he ...