Your family life will be happier and your child will be more cooperative and more teachable!!!

For many children, efficient compliance with parent and teacher demands is difficult. Over time, children with problems in self-control, perhaps due to ADHD, LD, PDD, anxiety or depression, feel incompetent and under confident in taking on a new task due to repeated failure to satisfy themselves and others. Many of them are concerned that if they try to do it and make mistake, they will be unhappy because of parent criticism or self criticism, This leads to emotional reactions, escape and avoidance behaviors, whining, complaining, tantrums and refusal to comply, hallmarks of the behavioral disorder known as oppositional defiant disorder or ODD. As children become successful in reducing demands or controlling others by these actions, they become more and more oppositional and/or defiant in virtually all situations potentially requiring effort or focus. They learn to be in a bad mood as soon as their parents "show up." They protect themselves from the possibility of any demands or requests. As time goes on, so many kids develop strategies to use annoyance to get parental attention and anger, which they often enjoy, because it puts them in control of their parents. This is what I  now call "oppositional fishing." So many parents become so upset. On some level, it would be better the parents viewed these actions as love, rather than hate. If the parents respond with anger and threats of their own, perpetuating chronic power struggles that destroy any chance for a pleasant family life. Some kids who are oppositional and some parents who deal with them get so upset, they do things that really did not want to do, they say, "I didn't want to do that, I did it because I LOST IT," indicating their emotions took away their accurate self-control.  ODD, created by these dysfunctional interactions, is a common outgrowth of ADHD, LD, PDD, Anxiety and Depressive Disorders.

What can be done to reverse this process? Parents must recognize that since they "own everything," their children must and will comply with their requests, particularly if they regain their own dignity through the demonstration of calm, thoughtful self-control. Parents must show their children understanding and love, treat them in a calm, clear, and consistent manner, and give clear positive feedback when successful cooperation occurs. This approach leads the children to abandon defiance and work in harmony with their parents to conquer attention and self-control problems. "I will treat you like a prince if you treat me like a king," is the guideline for future parent-child relationships.

Calm Parenting Groups, a twelve week program, begin frequently at the Institute for Behavioral Health in  in Commack, NY has been developing over the past 35 years by Dr. Ken Kaufman to help parents learn to successfully manage their own behavior so that their children become more cooperative and their homes become calmer and more harmonious. When the program  starts, parents learn to develop a clear understanding of their children's strengths and weaknesses as they work toward preparing an accommodation plan for their homes. Parents also start by learning to acquire effective self-calming skills by practicing  turning on slow, deep breathing five times a day during the first three weeks. of the group. Typically, the parents reduce their "Lost It's," turning  them into "Saved It's" and eventually into "Didn'ts. This basically helps them do what they really want to do with their kids 95% of the time. Many of Dr. Kaufman's unique assigned activities help parents break the oppositional behavior cycle,. They learn to understand and reduce their "criticism trap," as well as reducing reliance upon coercive techniques such as punishment and time outs or even reliance upon strong behavior modification methods such as tokens or tangible reinforcements. Calm, clear, and precise requests can get the kids started easily, and when their parents give them credit by enthusiastic descriptive praise the moment their cooperation starts, it makes the kids so happy that that often choose to be nice to their parents.

The most important ingredient which improves the parents relationship with their child was started in Dr. Kaufman's groups in 1997 was then known as "Special Playtime," but is now called "You Are In Control Of Me Time." This is a daily twenty-minute activity in which the child is given the opportunity to choose an activity during which they take total charge of their parent. The parent just looks to do it, appreciate it, rather than direct their child to do something..  You can listen a FREE One Hour discussion of this  procedure if you go the page on this website about TeleClasses.

Additional Ingredients that parents learn includes analyzing behavioral patterns by studying antecedents and consequences,  of clearly defined chronic problem behaviors so they can easily plan effective interventions at the times of most conflict. Emphasis on how requests are made, monitoring attention patterns, their frequency of positive and negative comments, and accentuating the positive, using descriptive praise consistently leads to major improvements in family attitudes and behavior. When defiance is reduced and cooperation increases, virtually all the children are willing to be taught to learn and practice effective new skills such as learning to calm themselves so they think more clearly. Communication skills are then enhanced so that family interactions can emphasize plans for correction and practice, rather than punitive or vindictive consequences. Families learn to negotiate the structure and rules together in order to improve family life. When this is achieved, parents can function as consultants and coaches to their children, helping them develop self -managed strategies for overcoming the challenges of impulsivity, inattention, hyperactivity, anxiety and depression. They treat their children as compassionately as they themselves would like to be treated when new skills need to be learned or when mistakes are made.

FEES: There is a $50 Group Session fee per parent (reduced to $80 if a couple attends a session) payable weekly at each of the 12 GROUP sessions. Insurance may pay all or part of the fees. To join a group, each parent must pay a $100 Attendance/Cooperation Deposit that is Fully Refundable if the entire program is completed. No deposit is required if the entire program is paid for up front at the start since you are guaranteeing your attendance. There is a $25 Materials Fee per parent to pay for the 2 books each receives. The best new thing is that if additional services are needed after a parent graduates, from a group, every Calm Parenting spent dollar can applied to discounts for new services. These are known as KK's,.....KID-HELP Kredits, . Read more...