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The Disciplinary Impact of Childhood ADHD

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When your child has ADHD, it can feel like nothing ever works – like every tactic you’ve learned for discipline simply isn’t effective, and indeed just seems to make things worse.

The frustration, for most parents dealing with childhood ADHD, is that long before you know what it is… you know that nothing you try works. You know that expert after expert, book after book, program after program is just plain not working. It’s not that you aren’t trying; you’re trying everything. You’re getting all the help you can, trying all the techniques you can, and working harder than you’ve ever worked before.

But childhood ADHD changes the rules. Many of the tactics you’re given for “normal” children don’t work at all, and many others do exactly the opposite of what they’re supposed to do. For a child with ADHD, the disciplinary approach needs to be a little different, and you need to take this into account.

The most important difference in childhood ADHD is that these children crave positive attention far more than they fear negative attention.

Instead of recognising the negative behavior and attempting to correct it, the more effective way to handle childhood ADHD is to recognise positive behavior and praise it; in the psychological community, this is sometimes called “shaping” and can provide remarkable results in a very short time.

Another often-overlooked method with childhood ADHD is the use of teamwork. Much of the trouble a child with ADHD encounters is that being so unlike the other children makes it hard to find friends, and a great deal of this can be overcome with simple teamwork between parent and child.

By sitting and doing things together with your child, you provide a role model – an example of appropriate behavior, which is critical in childhood ADHD if the child is to learn how to behave appropriately. A little patience and time go a long way. Apply the shaping methods above, rather than correcting inappropriate behavior, and most children rapidly get the idea and follow along.

It can be difficult to learn all the tactics and techniques that work well with childhood ADHD, so many parents may prefer to get a predefined program from a professional. The danger with these programs, of course, is that several of them simply do not cover the needs of childhood ADHD at all; while a great many do work, there are even more that do not. James Lehman’s system, the Total Transformation Program, is one of many that provide an excellent series of disciplinary tactics and techniques that work well even with childhood ADHD.

Over time, the trials and hardships of childhood ADHD can be lessened, simply by applying a few basic rules and guidelines that are easily learned. Parents can improve their own lives… and, more importantly, the lives of their children… by adapting their approaches to the specific needs of childhood ADHD.

To learn more about childhood ADHD I highly recommend The Total Transformation Program, by James Lehman.

Teaching Your Child Discipline

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Of all the things you teach your child, discipline is both the easiest and the hardest to define – as strange as that may sound. We all know how a disciplined child looks and acts, but how do we explain what exactly gives that child discipline while another child is undisciplined? What do we mean when we say a child has discipline?

One of the more insightful definitions of discipline, although the source is long lost, is that “discipline is doing what you know to be the right thing – even when it is inconvenient.” For a child, discipline is extremely difficult, because inconvenience often seems like the end of the world… “if I can’t have one more piece of cake, I’ll die!”

Dramatic dessert proclamations aside, how do we instruct children to do what they know to be right, even when it is inconvenient? How do we teach a child discipline, when we ourselves frequently don’t have enough of it? Whether it’s our diet, our exercise routine, the housework, or even our jobs – adults frequently, and to our own detriment, do not display as much discipline as we should. How can we teach our children something we do not ourselves seem to know?

The answer, of course, is that we have far more successes than failures in the realm of discipline. To a child, discipline is frequently portrayed as doing the right thing all the time, at every single opportunity. In reality, of course, we do not show perfect discipline at all times… but we show a remarkable amount of it. We shower every morning, change our clothes after work, cook dinner every night, brush our teeth two or more times a day – there are a great many things we do that are inconvenient, but we still have the discipline to do them.

To teach your child the importance of discipline, focus on the success, and not the failure. Rather than simply chastising the child for not cleaning his bedroom or brushing her teeth, make sure to see and recognise the discipline your child does display; sitting through an entire movie, helping to load the dishwasher, even the smallest things are – to your child – discipline. Notice the choices your child makes, and recognise the ones that show an understanding of discipline.

The focus on positive discipline, and not on the lack of it, shows your child discipline every day; not only in the things your child does, but in the things you do. Understanding that discipline is not an all-or-nothing concept, but something that should be held most of the time, can go a long way in helping your child understand discipline… and develop a healthy amount of it in adulthood.

To learn more about child discipline I highly recommend The Total Transformation Program, by James Lehman.

Dealing With Your Defiant Teenager

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Every parent, at some time or another, needs to deal with the problem of a defiant teenager – the times, whether frequent or infrequent, that your teenager simply doesn’t want to do what you expect. This can be terribly frustrating, not simply because your expectations aren’t being met, but because a teenager certainly has the mental and emotional resources to understand those expectations.

In general, a defiant teenager has a social and psychological need to be in control. A teenager is at once not a child, but still not an adult – capable of making choices and taking actions that have real and serious impact, but without the wisdom of age and experience to guide those choices and actions.

Having been there ourselves, and gained this wisdom and experience, we want to help our children make these choices and take these actions properly. The defiant teenager is not simply rebelling for the sake of rebellion, but recognizes on some level that simply doing as he or she is told will not provide that wisdom and experience.

Teenagers make the bad choices they do, not because they desire the undesirable outcomes of those choices – but because they do not have the skills to solve problems as effectively as adults. A defiant teenager does not simply want to be defiant, but wants instead to experiment with problem-solving tactics that will be useful in adulthood.

Once you understand this dynamic – that your defiant teenager is not defying the wisdom and experience which leads to the proper and correct choices, but defying instead the demand of a choice without explanation of the wisdom and experience behind it – a more productive dynamic can evolve.

Even the most defiant teenager is usually equipped to understand the basic rules of cause and effect. Instead of telling your teen which choice to make, help reason through the choice – speak directly to the decision being made, without being emotional or angry about the subject. If you’ve had experience with the same choice, telling your teen about this experience directly… what choice you made, why you made it, and what happened in the end… goes a lot farther than simply dictating the “correct” choice.

In short, it is far more effective to join the team with your defiant teenager than to install yourself as the coach. As James Lehman, MSW, observes: “The motivation is to do things their way, not yours, and to retain power.” By aggressively promoting the “right” decision, we take power away from our children, and they resist – but by joining the team, we can exert our power together on the problem, instead of on one another.

Once your defiant teenager understands, through consistent experience, that the two of you are on the same team and working together to solve problems – instead of trying to assert power over one another by being the one to make the decision – the defiance rapidly dissipates.

To learn more about dealing with a defiant teenager I highly recommend The Total Transformation Program, by James Lehman.

Effective Parenting Skills for Every Child

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Parents the world over are in a constant search for the education that can lead them to the most effective parenting. Skills that can appropriately discipline our children, not merely punish them, are the pinnacle of parental achievement; we’re constantly seeking the best and most effective parenting skills.

It’s important to understand, in that search, what exactly we mean by “effective.” Parenting skills that worked in previous generations are not always appropriate to the modern child; the newspapers are full of advice, from columnists and reporters alike, who tell us which new and improved methods will work best with our children.

But in the end, the most effective parenting skills are not anything new – because children, no matter how much the world changes, are still more or less the same as they have always been… and rather than develop skills at parenting our children, the true aim is to teach skills to the children themselves.

One of the earliest skills our children should develop is the ability to read social situations. This can be made into a game; magazines, newspapers, and television shows can be used to teach children when people look happy or sad, tired or angry.

As children grow, failure to read social situations can lead to difficulty in getting along with others, or – worse – to hanging around with “the wrong crowd.” Our collections of effective parenting skills need to include this practice, of teaching our children to read others’ emotions.

The second step from this position is to educate our children on reading their own emotional states, and controlling their responses – to choose a response that is not merely the easiest or most instinctive, but one that will be effective. Parenting skills that focus on simply calling emotions “bad” or “negative” do little to help with this; the correct and proper behavior needs to be encouraged.

Building on this foundation, as children become older, they’ll need to understand problem solving techniques to make their own decisions. Effective parenting skills are measured not by how well they control the child’s behavior, but how well they educate that child in the skills necessary to enter adulthood.

While teenage angst has become a cottage industry in and of itself, from the “emo” movement to the “goth” and “punk” subcultures, most true dissatisfaction with teenage life comes from a lack of problem solving skills – and teaching them is one of the more effective parenting skills you can develop.

Once you’ve developed the effective parenting skills that can teach your child to read social situations, understand their own emotional states, and solve their own problems… parenting rapidly becomes a joy, rather than a chore. Children are remarkably good at, well, being good – if they have the skills to deal with the world around them.

Children have honestly not changed much over the last several centuries. For all the discussion of effective parenting skills in the new millennium, the children are ultimately still the same… and will probably be the same for generations to come.

To learn more about effective parenting skills I highly recommend The Total Transformation Program, by James Lehman.

Understanding Discipline: Techniques and Strategies

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One of the most difficult parts of being a parent is needing to discipline your child. The standard discipline techniques we remember from our own childhood may no longer be applicable; many of us might remember heavy doses of corporal punishment, which is no longer an accepted form of discipline in the modern world.

This leaves many of us in limbo when it comes to discipline techniques, since we have very few examples of discipline that are both acceptable and well understood. In addition, every child is different, and the discipline techniques that work with one child may not work at all on another.

The question we need to ask ourselves, as parents, is what exactly we mean by discipline; techniques that merely punish improper behavior may not really create what we want, but teach the child how not to get caught… or, worse, not to do anything at all.

The cornerstone of discipline is to understand the consequences of our actions. To think not only about what we are going to do, but about what will happen when we do it. Effective discipline techniques will take this into account, and encourage proper behavior rather than simply discouraging improper behavior.

The overall strategy of any discipline techniques you may use, then, should be to identify proper behavior – not by the process of elimination, through punishment for improper behavior and a lack of action for proper behavior, but by specific positive reinforcement of proper behavior.

One of the most important elements of this is what James Lehman calls “thinking errors.” Children do not misbehave because they want to misbehave, but because they think the misbehavior is proper behavior – and correcting these errors in thinking isn’t simply a matter of saying what is wrong, but identifying what is right.

One of the more useful discipline techniques for this is to respond to misbehavior not with a question about how the child is feeling, or what the child is thinking, but instead what was happening. The critical element of thinking error is that the child believes that the perception is the truth; when you ask what the child is feeling or thinking, this implies that what the child feels or thinks is not the truth.

By asking what was happening, you encourage the child to explain what he or she was thinking and feeling, not from the perspective that something is wrong – but from the assumption that this is the truth.

Discipline techniques such as this approach the question without looking like a challenge, and literally prevent the child from becoming defensive. Without the defensive response, you can have a conversation instead of an argument, and more productive gains can be made.

When the problem of a misbehaving child is approached with the type of discipline techniques that anticipate and prevent the unproductive results that cause arguments, proper discipline becomes much easier to achieve and maintain – because more energy is invested in promoting appropriate choices, and less energy is wasted on defending inappropriate choices.

To learn more about discipline techniques I highly recommend The Total Transformation Program, by James Lehman.

Dealing With Defiance in Children

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Defiance in children can be one of the more frustrating things with which we, as parents, are expected to cope. Whenever we instruct or direct the defant child, we find opposition at every turn, and some truly creative ways of avoiding the desired behavior.

To the child, defiance is a way of asserting control. We all want to be in control of our own lives, and defiance in children is often the only way they can see to assert that control – when instructed to do something, their only choice other than compliance appears to be saying “no.” And therein lies the key.

To handle defiance in children, offering choices is the simplest and most direct way of allowing the child to assert control in a productive and simple manner. Rather than insisting that the child do as you direct, provide the child with a choice of two things – even something as simple as choosing the order of activity can be effective.

It is important to note that a choice between reward and punishment is rarely sufficient, because this is really no choice at all, and will simply create more defiance. In children, the desire to control the environment is strong, and a choice needs to be real if we are to expect any productive result.

One such choice might be to choose whether to wash your face or brush your teeth first. Regardless of the choice, teeth must be brushed and faces must be washed; but by providing the child some control over the process, even when the end result is the same, goes a long way in addressing potential defiance in children.

The most important thing to remember is that the child does not, in most cases, want to be defiant. The reasoning behind defiance in children is not to be contrary or to have power over authority, but to exert control over the child’s own life; to make decisions that are meaningful. Simply recognizing this can go a long way in addressing defiance in children.

As parents, we do not want to be in control of our children’s lives at all. We want our children to reach a point where they can be in control of their own lives, and make choices which will be productive and beneficial as they reach adulthood. Defiance in children is not a resistance to this idea, but an effort to move the process along faster – to have that control, and demonstrate how well they can make these choices. Offering choices provides a productive and beneficial outlet for that effort.

It rapidly becomes second nature, to offer a choice when faced with defiance. In children, the drive to “grow up” – and have greater control over their lives – is one of the strongest drives they experience. Simply providing an avenue for the child to express this drive, and demonstrate greater responsibility and intelligence, can rapidly and dramatically reduce defiance i children.

To learn more about solving problems with your defiant child I highly recommend The Total Transformation Program, by James Lehman.

Dealing With ODD Effectively

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Most parents have enough to handle with their children, even when there’s nothing more than the usual childhood behavior. But when your child has oppositional defiance disorder (ODD), the usual parenting techniques and patterns seem counterproductive – dealing with ODD can be a stressful and confusing task. To handle it effectively, it seems like you have to work a lot harder and longer to achieve half the success of other parents.

The major problem most parents of ODD children face isn’t so much the opposition itself, but the nature of the children they’re dealing with. ODD goes beyond the usual “problem with authority” every child displays to some degree, and comes primarily from a deep-seated need for the child to be in control. The parent, in many cases, feels out of control… as though the child simply cannot behave.

Underneath the defiance, however, there is the same battle all children fight: the battle for self-determination and independence. Every child wants to be in control, and dealing with ODD becomes much simpler when you understand why the child is being defiant in the first place… because defiance works. It places the child in control, and frustrates any and all efforts by the parent (or other authority figure) to be in control.

When dealing with ODD in your own children, or other people’s children if you are a caregiver or other professional, there is a simple understanding that makes all the difference. All you must do is understand why the child is defiant, and address the needs for that defiance in another fashion.

Children are defiant when they feel out of control. Once they understand that they do have control, and are capable of making choices that affect their own lives, dealing with ODD is not as difficult; the child learns, over time, to make those choices intelligently and correctly.

Even when you’re not dealing with ODD in your child, the same processes can improve discipline in children simply because these desires and impulses – while exaggerated in the ODD child – are universal. Every child wants to make choices that are productive and helpful in achieving their goals, but the difficulty is in identifying which behaviors achieve goals in the long term; not just at the moment.

For parents that feel a little lost without guidance, many programs exist which offer help in dealing with ODD or other discipline issues in children. Newer programs offer novelty; older programs offer time-tested techniques. Some programs, such as James Lehman’s, fall in between the two… being both time-tested, and based on recent understandings of how the childhood mind works.

Dealing with ODD is not an impossible task, nor is it particularly difficult – once you understand the goals of the child and how to help accomplish them. By moving from being the other team (which must be defeated) to being on the same team, working with the child to achieve the same goal, dealing with ODD can actually become a natural and normal process that requires little effort.

To learn more about dealing with ODD I highly recommend The Total Transformation Program, by James Lehman.

ODD Disorder in Kids and Strategies for Parents

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ODD Disorder, or Oppositional Defiant Disorder, can be a tremendous difficulty for a parent to handle; what might seem like a simple request to you just rubs your child exactly the wrong way, and leads to a fight or argument that can last hours… when simply doing as you’ve asked would have taken only a few minutes.

While the actual diagnosis of ODD disorder is of course best left to a qualified professional, there are many warning signs that could signify its presence. The primary behaviors that could identify the presence of ODD disorder are an ongoing pattern of disobedient and hostile actions toward authority figures – whether violent, e.g. throwing things or shouting, or merely passive-aggressive… simple refusal to act, or to alter one’s actions.

It’s important to understand that ODD disorder is fundamentally a way that children seek control over their surroundings. Children lack a great deal of control that adults take for granted; looking at the world through your child’s eyes, it can become apparent that even when you find your requests reasonable and small, they still represent a loss of control for the child.

One of the most effective techniques to deal with these scenarios is to simply reframe the request as the child having control over the outcome. The presence of some consequence is a powerful motivator, if it is properly framed as something the child can choose – rather than responding to undesired behavior with an immediate consequence, identify the desired behavior and the consequence of continued refusal.

There are, of course, productive and unproductive types of consequences… and it can be difficult to determine which type of consequence will work best. Behavioral therapist James Lehman clarifies and explains this in his Total Transformation Program, including the difference between task-based and time-based consequences.

A time-based consequence is the usual variety many of us remember from our own childhood; we may have been grounded for a week, or lost television for a month, or had to sit in the corner for an hour. But the best consequences teach a lesson, and these consequences do not – they only teach patience, how to “do time.”

A task-based consequence, however, relates directly to the undesirable behavior and teaches a lesson about that behavior. Staying out past curfew may require coming in an hour earlier the next time, to show your child can observe a curfew; rudeness to a sibling may require a letter of apology. The consequence is not arbitrary, but relates specifically to the infraction at hand.

The process of dealing with a child who has ODD disorder, or simply displays its tendencies, can be improved dramatically with the right guidance. With effort and patience, the undesirable behaviors of children and even young adults can be modified into productive and appropriate behaviors.

If you enjoyed this article about ODD disorder you’re probably going to get a lot more out of The Total Transformation Program, by James Lehman.

Child Discipline Methods That Really Work

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When dealing with a misbehaving child, one of the first things parents learn is that it’s difficult to find working child discipline methods. The methods that we may recall from our own childhood simply don’t mean the same thing to our own children; after all, every child is different, and where one child may be terrified at the prospect of a parent’s disapproval, another may simply not show much interest in avoiding discipline at all.

One of the most unproductive mindsets, one that has wormed its way into the cracks of our culture from every direction, is that punishment is the end-all and be-all of consequences. Discipline is not about forcing your children to suffer, so they will avoid the behavior that preceded their suffering; this is never an effective method.

What truly instills discipline is the understanding that the child is in control of what happens… and that any consequence is a direct result of the child’s own actions. A major part of this is to keep the consequences simple, and tie them to accountability. Child discipline methods that involve accountability are more often successful.

In the end, what your child needs is not some emotional aversion to certain behaviors because Bad Things happened when he did them before. You simply can’t make enough Bad Things happen; you’ll never catch every misbehavior, and you’ll just end up teaching the skill of “not getting caught.”

What your child needs is the appropriate social and intellectual skills that enable him or her to identify what makes a behavior proper or improper, and choose the proper behavior because it signifies his or her degree of skill. This is what discipline really is – the conviction and desire to do the right thing, the proper thing, even if it is inconvenient.

In James Lehman’s popular Total Transformation Method, he recommends a system of simple consequences that foster a sense of accountability – and, with it, responsibility. Children do not learn from what their parent says, but from what their parent does… and the Total Transformation Method focuses on real actions, rather than empty words.

When your words explain that you’re teaching responsibility by putting your child in a chair, while you clean up the mess left behind yourself, and your child simply sits and waits… your actions don’t teach responsibility. Rather the opposite.

An action-based consequence would be having the child clean up the mess himself or herself, as a direct result of having made it. It is clear to the child that there would be no mess to clean up if one were not made, and the correct behavior is encouraged.

If you enjoyed this article on child discipline methods you’re likely to enjoy what James Lehman has to teach you in his system, The Total Transformation Program.

ADHD: Disorder or Difference?

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ADHD: Disorder or Difference?


by Dr. Robert Myers, Child Psychologist

ADHD: Disorder or Difference? The word “disorder” conjures up images of illness, disease and serious disabilities. All parents want to see their child as the smartest, most capable and best liked boy or girl on the block. So why would they want to have a label attached to them that often coveys just the opposite–such as slow learner, under-achiever or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder?

What a difference one word can make. Suppose we changed the last D in ADHD from “disorder” to “difference.” We could then say that a child with ADHD has some significant differences in his cognitive ability, emotional sensitivity and activity level when compared to other children. This difference is probably inherited. His “skill set” is different from 95% of the children in his class.

I believe that, as a society, we have created a monster with ADHD, and it has fueled our perception that medicating our children can solve all their problems-and ours.

Unfortunately, the environment in which he spends most of his time is geared toward the other 95%. However, we then could look at helping him to adapt successfully to this environment, using his own set of strengths rather than helping him to cope with this environment due to his weaknesses. We then might say that this child may need psychostimulants and/or psychological intervention to enable him to concentrate on boring tasks and control spontaneity in a highly regimented environment.

The above in some ways reflects the ongoing debate about whether ADHD is a valid mental health condition that requires appropriate medical and psychological intervention OR that ADHD is a mythical disease state, manufactured by the medical community in order to make huge profits and is promoted by educational bureaucrats and abusive parents desiring to tranquilize unruly kids. I believe that, as a society, we have created a monster with ADHD. We perceive it as a diagnosis that will forever change or even taint the course of our child’s life. And we are no longer surprised by the number of school-age children who are now diagnosed with ADHD. In fact, we have come to regard it as a norm, and it has fueled our perception that medicating our children can solve all their problems—and ours.

The facts, as in most debates, point to the truth being somewhere in the middle of these perceptions. ADHD is a condition worthy of future study to provide answers to scientific questions that will result in more accurate diagnosis and more effective methods of treatment. In the meantime, ADHD left untreated leads to a higher likelihood of depression, suicide and substance abuse later in life. ADHD appropriately treated leads to a higher likelihood of success in life because it can help the child properly channel his increased sensitivity, creativity and high energy.

On a more personal level, as a parent of a son who was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of five, I can identify with parents who may lean toward either the denial or victim mentality. When my wife and I were concerned about our son’s behavior and emotional well-being, the last thing I thought of was that he had ADHD. Sometimes, I was probably a bit on the overprotective side. But on the whole, once our whole family accepted that he was a child with an attention deficit hyperactivity difference who needed medication, along with psychological support (provided by us at home), the situation turned around completely. He responded well to the medication, and the crisis of emotional turmoil was over. Over the years, we continued to provide consistent structure (as best we could) and encouragement as well as teaching him how to relax, learn necessary social skills and how to “stop and think.” It all paid off. He has been off medication since middle school. He graduated with honors from a highly regarded university and is now pursuing a successful career in TV and film. He has a great sense of humor and lots of friends.

I encourage parents not be afraid of the diagnosis, give it undue weight and importance or use the label as a crutch for your child. Instead, I believe we need to accept it as the first step in turning a difficult situation around to a positive direction. Helping a child with ADHD succeed requires a team approach that often needs to continue over many years. That team includes the family, health professionals, teachers and, of course, the child. Children may need medication, but treatment guidelines indicate that psychological interventions are also important. In some cases, psychological interventions may be sufficient to bring about desired results. In other cases, they address symptoms medication alone does not help and may also actually reduce the dosage of medication necessary to achieve desired results.

Effective psychological interventions include parent education, behavior modification, home-school contracts, cognitive behavioral therapy, social skills training, relaxation training and mental exercises to improve cognitive functioning. Recent research indicates that many or all of these interventions may be most effective when implemented at home with the parents and the child working as a team. Not only does this approach appear to improve the short-term effectiveness of the interventions, it also results in positive parenting techniques and an open and supportive parent/child relationship that becomes a way of life that is consistent and enduring over time.

So, ADHD can be perceived as a label to be dreaded, used as an excuse to avoid difficult situations or it can be perceived as the identification of the problem underlying a child’s difficulties at home and at school which can be successfully addressed. On the one hand, it is a curse. On the other, it is an opportunity to make things better. The basic tenet of cognitive behavioral therapy is that how we think determines how we feel, which then determines how we behave. If we want to change how we feel and how we behave as the result of those feelings, we need to change how we think. ADHD: Think of it as an opportunity.

ADHD: Disorder or Difference? reprinted with permission from Empowering Parents. For more information, visit www.empoweringparents.com

Dr. Robert Myers is a clinical psychologist with 25 years of experience working with children and adolescents with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and learning disabilities, and is the creator of The Total Focus Program. Dr. Bob has been a talk show host on KIEV and KORG in Southern California and has also appeared as a guest on many radio and television talk shows nationally and as a regular columnist for Parents and Kids Magazine. Dr. Myers earned his PhD from the University of Southern California.
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