ONLINE PARENTING COACH

"I have a hard decision to make regarding holding my 9th grade son back a year in school. He did very poorly last school year (mostly Ds and Fs). His teacher is recommending that he repeat the grade. What are your thoughts?" I don’t recommend it! Unfortunately, repeating a grade may have even worse consequences for a student who is doing poorly in school. Research studies suggest overwhelmingly that retention in grade is an ineffective strategy for children who are experiencing academic difficulty or demonstrating 'immature' behaviors.  One study, conducted by the University of Georgia, found that students tended to fall even further behind during their second year in the same grade. Research says that a student who repeats a grade in elementary school is much more likely to later drop out of school. Students who are retained may do better at first, but then fall behind again, possibly because of learning difficulties that have not been identified. Students ...

Hi Mark, I've just subscribed to the e-book a couple of days ago so I haven't got very far. We've started assignment 1. I'm looking for advise on how to handle the issue of smoking in the bedroom. My 16 year old daughter, A has been smoking for probably a year and has always hidden it from us. Whenever I questioned her about smelling of smoke in the past, she would always say that it was because she was hanging around her friends who smoke. In the last 6 months, we've caught her with cigarettes in her bag and drawers and she has always made the excuse that she was hanging on to them for her friends who didn't want their parents to know to which we've said that that is their responsibility, not hers. In the last month, she is doing it openly in the backyard and has told us that she has no intention of quitting and that we just have to accept it. The last straw was when she started smoking in her room. I wrote her a note (as I find it hard to ta...

Hi Mark, I’m sure you’ve heard it all before when it comes to teens etc everything you state in you initial page about teens and their out of control behaviour really does apply to my 15 year old girl…. And I do mean ALL of it. So thank you firstly for being a point of contact and believe me that I will do everything to gain more knowledge and power within my own family unit to enable my daughter to be able to make better choices in her life. One question I do have is concerning persistent runaways – my 15 year old has runaway from home 5 times we had the police, authorities and even the school involved with trying to “help” her but to no avail, after the fourth time I ended up packing up and moving 1400 km away from everything we had known even becoming separated from her father (who she initially blamed for running away) thinking that a fresh start would help – obviously this hasn’t helped as the initial problem is still there (now she admits that it wasn’t anything to d...