Mark,

We prescribe to your teen maintenance program and we (my husband and I) feel things have improved...everyone knows the rules, no more screaming matches, no more guessing at the consequences. However, I would appreciate your opinion on one issue.

Last Saturday was my daughters 17th birthday and my husband and I agreed to let our daughter have a small party at our home under our rules. I managed the birthday crowd from 30 feet away. Roughly 15 kids arrived and were great until they left at 11pm.

Our daughter and her two girl friends who planned to spend the night were in the guest house. When I went to check on the girls the doors to the guest house were locked. After some banging by me, the doors were open and the 3 gals looked too casual. When I opened the guest closet and found a male friend of theirs standing there, I drove him home. Apparently, he came back to our guest home drunk or under the influence of something (we have a gate, so he must have jumped the gate or more likely, the girls let him in (roughly 2am) and punched multiply holes in our plantation shutters and a whole in our flat screen plasma TV.

When I told my husband this, he just gave a brief "hu" almost a chuckle. He and my daughter are close... My concern is that my husband and I are not on a united front and my daughter knows this, so she "plays" to dad. What can I do to get my husband on a united front with me so he is not enabling my daughter?

Please let me know your thoughts. Thanks, yet again, Mark.

D.

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Hi D.,

A weaker plan supported by both parents is much better than a stronger plan supported by only one. Having said that, I’ll simply share a recent success story from a wife in the same dilemma (i.e., husband didn’t really get with the program, and in some cases worked against the wife):

Hi Mark,
I don’t know if you remember me or not. We spoke last week on the phone re: my husband not wanting to do the program because he thinks it’s too easy on our daughter (he believes she should be grounded the entire grading period for making mostly F’s on her last report card). Anyway, he and I were not on the same page, and this was creating some real problems …he refused to read the eBook. So I got the CDs and played them every time we were in the car together (which is a lot). I had a captive audience – LOL :).

Anyway, since he’s been force-fed some of the strategies (as well as the reasoning behind them) he’s been a bit more open to going along with me. Our daughter’s behaviour is slowly improving as a result. Although we have much work to do, she has great difficulty playing one parent against the other now.

Just wanted to give you an update,

J.W.

Is this something you think might work D__? If so, you can get the audio CDs of the program by clicking here. If not, we can talk about another plan.

Mark

I have a very out of control 17 year old boy...

Mark-

I just read your e-book and loved it. As you have probably heard before, I have been doing everything wrong. I am not beating myself up, I just need to learn these techniques.

I have a very out of control 17 year old boy (junior, C. He fits your worst profile to a tee. I am a single mom. Dad is an alcoholic and barely in the picture. I also have 2 girls, 12 and 14. Our house is a boil ready to burst.

We already have drug abuse issues with C. and I have a very good outpatient counselor seeing him. My requirement for C. staying here was he keep his grades up (he is very bright) and stay in sports. He is with a better group of kids, busy and needs the discipline. He has always loved football and wrestling. I had to push him into football this season and he was glad I did. I am hearing the same objections for wrestling, which has always been his favorite sport.

He is incredibly angry and wants his freedom. He wants to work, get a car and get out of our home!

His father had a recent relapse and C. has started smoking pot again. I am just starting your program, but am at a loss about whether I insist he go out for wrestling. I believe he will be fine once he starts. It was part of the contract for staying here. I cannot get a hold of his counselor and need to make a decision. Help!!

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Hi B.,

I think you have bigger fish to fry that “insisting he go out for wrestling” {e.g., anger, drug abuse, alcoholic/unavailable father}. I would say - at this point - to ‘choose your battles carefully’. I think once you digest most of the material in the eBook, you’ll have some good ideas of how to address the most important issues. {Be sure to listen to all the audio}.

Stay in touch,

Mark

Online Parent Support

Time for Alternative School?

"Having problems with my 15 year old son, B___. In the past twenty-four hours.... He returned to school yesterday after a TWO WEEK OUT-OF-SCHOOL SUSPENSION for calling one of his teachers an F----ing B----- and wadded up the office referral and threw it at her hitting her in the face. We had to meet with the Principal and he was told to tow the line or he would be sent to an alternative school. Three hours later...I get a call from school. He was in the ISS room, used HIS CELL PHONE to call the ISS monitor's phone to make it ring many times and disrupt everything. His phone was confiscated. This morning after he left for school, I was picking up things in his room. I found a receipt from the grocery store for the machine that swamps in coins for cash. He had helped himself to $80.00 worth of change I had in my closet and took it in to cash. Everyday it is something else... every day the only responses I get from him are F ___YOU! He is very angry since his Dad left in June. What do I do???"

 

==> Click here for the answer...

My Out-of-Control Teen: On compact disc

Thank you Mark, it worked this time and I ordered the CD's. It will be a lot easier to listen in my car without my twin 15 year old girls nearby while I drive to work. I am sure I will be back in touch with questions after listening. I am grateful to have found your website and I hope to find some help in single parenting these girls. One is easy, one seems to be the challenge of my life.

Take care,

D.A.

Teen Suicide On The Rise

Mark-

I saw on the news last night that teen suicide is on the rise. Do you know whether or not this is really the case, and if so, why?

T.T.

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Hi T.,

Two reports released this week show significant increases in youth suicide rates between 2003 and 2004, following a consistent drop since the 1990s. A study released in the September issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry, shows a 14 percent increase in suicide rates for children and adolescents under the age of 19 from 2003 to 2004. The second study, published in the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, shows an eight percent increase in suicide rates for individuals between the ages of 10 and 24 in 2004, following a 28 percent decrease over the last 15 years. This is the largest escalation in this group since the agency began collecting suicide data in 1979.

Unfortunately, child and adolescent suicide is at the highest rate in 15 years.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's report, the decline took place from 1990 to 2003 (from 9.48 to 6.78 per 100,000 people), and the increase took place from 2003 to 2004, (from 6.78 to 7.32).

Whether this is a short-term spike or the start of a trend, we, as parents, must do everything in our power to prevent more teen suicides from occurring.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration placed a black box warning on antidepressants for pediatric use in 2004, which was followed by pervasive media coverage and a 22 percent decrease in the prescription of antidepressant medications from 2003 to children and adolescents. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry advised the FDA's Pediatric Advisory Committee against placing a black box warning on antidepressant medications.

More research is needed to find out whether there is a correlation between the black box warning and this increase in teen suicide. My concern is that the FDA's warning has made families fearful of obtaining help. This is a tragedy as treatment works.

Antidepressant medications, when monitored and paired with talk therapy like cognitive behavioral therapy can be an effective component of treating youth depression. The National Institute of Mental Health's (NIMH) Treatment of Adolescents with Depression Study (TADS) reports that a combination of Fluoxetine (Prozac®) and cognitive behavior (talk) therapy led to significant clinical improvement in 71 percent of moderately-to-severely depressed adolescents.

For more information on antidepressant medications, visit www.parentsmedguide.com or www.physiciansmedguide.com.

Online Parent Support

Vitamin B12 Injections for Autism

Mark,

Have you heard anything about vitamin B12 shots for autism? And if so, do you know about it's effectiveness?

C.W.

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Hi C.,

Unfortunately, preliminary results of a small ongoing study of vitamin B12 injections for children with autism showed no signs of significant benefit, but researchers remain hopeful.

Hope is derived from anecdotal reports of remarkable clinical improvements using subcutaneous vitamin B12 (methyl cobalamin), although there have been no supporting published studies. Vitamin B12 is an antioxidant involved in metabolism pathways for cellular methylation, which has been implicated in other neurological disorders like schizophrenia and Alzheimer's Disease.

The researchers reported that no significant benefits have turned up yet for the 14 patients who have completed three months in the current double-blind crossover study. They found no significant differences with active versus placebo treatment for the following measures:

· Clinical Global Impression Scale Improvement (P=0.4129),
· Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test scores (P=0.2895), and
· Social Communication Questionnaire verbal results (P=0.4211).

A significant improvement found for nonverbal Social Communication Questionnaire scores in the vitamin B12 group compared to placebo (P=0.0309) disappeared after adjusting for multiple testing.

The researchers randomized half of the participants to six weeks of 64.5 ug/kg of subcutaneous methyl cobalamin injections every three days and the other half to a similar schedule of saline injections disguised to maintain the double-blind. For the following six weeks, the children were crossed over to the opposite group.

Diagnosis of autism was confirmed using several clinical measures including the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, and Mullen Scales of Early Learning. Patients could stay on all other treatment modalities they entered with but no additions were allowed during the trial.

Interestingly, several of the children seemed to respond well. Three of the eight participants who subsequently completed three months of open-label therapy and two of the five who have completed six months were rated "much improved" on the Clinical Global Impression Improvement scale.

While there is a general trend toward improvement in several of the subjects, this trend does not reach group significance with this small sample size.

Autism is so heterogeneous - you can't expect one treatment is going to work for all kids with autism.

The real usefulness of the study may be to indicate which patients will respond to the treatment, which is generally thought to have few side effects.

The study does not have a traditional design and will likely be scrutinized critically. It is a wonderful bridge between research and the complimentary and alternative medicine that so many patients are using where ground needs to be broken.

The researchers said they plan to enroll at least 42 children in the study, which was supported by the University of California at Davis.

Online Parent Support

Too Much T.V.!?

Mark,

Thanks for your time. I have another questions. What can you do when your son is addicted to t.v. Do I take that privilege away, limit it...? He doesn't do homework or chores becasue he is always glued to the T.V. It's becoming a real problem. It's like the more t.v. he watches, the more problems we are having. Can T.V affect a child's behavior?

J.C.

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Hi J.,

American children watch an average of three to fours hours of television daily. Television can be a powerful influence in developing value systems and shaping behavior. Unfortunately, much of today's television programming is violent. Hundreds of studies of the effects of TV violence on children and teenagers have found that children may:

· become "immune" or numb to the horror of violence
· gradually accept violence as a way to solve problems
· identify with certain characters, victims and/or victimizers
· imitate the violence they observe on television; and

Children with emotional, behavioral, learning or impulse control problems may be more easily influenced by TV violence. The impact of TV violence may be immediately evident in the child's behavior or may surface years later. Young people can even be affected when the family atmosphere shows no tendency toward violence.

Extensive viewing of television violence by children causes greater aggressiveness. Sometimes, watching a single violent program can increase aggressiveness. Children who view shows in which violence is very realistic, frequently repeated or unpunished, are more likely to imitate what they see.

While TV violence is not the only cause of aggressive or violent behavior, it is clearly a significant factor. Parents can protect children from excessive TV violence in the following ways:

·disapprove of the violent episodes in front of the children, stressing the belief that such behavior is not the best way to resolve a problem
·pay attention to the programs their children are watching and watch some with them
·point out that although the actor has not actually been hurt or killed, such violence in real life results in pain or death
·refuse to let the children see shows known to be violent, and change the channel or turn off the TV set when offensive material comes on, with an explanation of what is wrong with the program
·set limits on the amount of time they spend with the television; consider removing the TV set from the child=s bedroom
·to offset peer pressure among friends and classmates, contact other parents and agree to enforce similar rules about the length of time and type of program the children may watch

Parents can also use these measures to prevent harmful effects from television in other areas such as racial or sexual stereotyping. The amount of time children watch TV, regardless of content, should be moderated because it decreases time spent on more beneficial activities such as reading, playing with friends, and developing hobbies.

More tips…

Be conscious of what your teen is watching away from home.

1.Casually ask them what they did at a friend's house and use open-ended questions. This will give you some insight into what they may be watching away from home.
2.Encourage your teen not to watch inappropriate shows away from home.
3.Talk to your teen's friends and their parents about your beliefs on TV viewing.

Cut down the amount of time your teen watches TV - Involve your teen in other activities he enjoys.

1.Designate certain evenings for special family activities, like a family bike ride or a game.
2.Encourage your teen take part in sports, games, hobbies, and music.
3.Put books, magazines, and board games in the family room to provide your teen the opportunity to do something other than watch television.

Want your teen to rethink his TV viewing habits? Go without TV for a week.

1.Be creative in finding alternatives to TV like scavenger hunts around the house.
2.Get the whole family involved and find activities you can do together.

Tips to keeping your teen from watching violence on TV:

1.Be aware of what your teen is seeing on the news. Often the news can include graphic violence and other adult material that may not be suitable for children.
2.Do not allow your teen to watch violence on television. To help monitor his viewing habits when you are gone, consider installing parental controls.
3.Share your beliefs and values when it comes to watching TV, and set a good example.

Tips to Encouraging Your Teen to Watch Less TV:

1.Keep the TV off during family mealtimes.
2.Limit your children's daily and weekend TV viewing time. For instance, no TV before school, during homework, or late at night.
3.Limit your teen's ability to watch shows that contain adult content or violence by using parental controls available on most televisions.

Set a good example for your teen's TV viewing habits. Be a role model.

1.Spend your free time reading, exercising, or interacting with your family.
2.Turn off the TV when a particular show is over.
3.Watch adult programs when your teen is not present.

Mark

Online Parent Support