When it comes to disciplining children, parents are usually faced with the dilemma of teaching their kids two important values: honesty and the importance of consequences.

Say for example you found out that your child broke the pots in your neighbor’s garden on purpose and for no apparent reason. Although your child confessed what he did, still you want to implement some punishment. What should you do then in order to administer consequences for this unacceptable behavior without discouraging your child to be honest or tell something like this in the future? Of course, the last thing that you want is to punish your child for telling the truth.

Actually, if this situation is handled the right way, it offers an opportunity to teach both lessons in a way that your child will surely remember until he grows old. Given the situation, the reward that you can give for your child’s honesty may be a little intangible, however it will be important in the long run. You should tell your child, with sincerity and warmth, that you are happy that he told you the truth about what happened and that you recognize the fact that it was indeed an act of courage.

You can tell him, “It makes me easier to trust you when you are brave enough to tell me the truth even when it is something very difficult to do.”

You have to acknowledge that the fact your child told you about that he did indicates that he knows he did something wrong. Let him know that by telling him, “I know you know that what you did was a bad thing to do, and I believe that you will not do it again.”

In order to let your child learn from what happened, you need to involve him in deciding what he should do to make amends with the neighbors. You can ask him, “What do you think should happen now?” Or you can tell him a simple thing like, “If someone broke your most favorite toy, what would you want them to do?” With proper guidance, your child will arrive at the realization that he needs to apologize and needs to replace what he broke.

You might need to use your own money to replace what he destroyed, but you should make it clear to him that he needs to figure something out in order to pay you back what you spent. Work out a plan – you can maybe agree that a portion of his allowance goes to a special container, or that you will give him extra household chores to earn additional money.

With clear and logical consequences, there is no need for angry lectures and spanking. Most importantly, your child will learn a memorable lesson about honesty and proper behavior in the process.

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Like most parents, I don’t want my child to grow up too fast. As parents, we’ve all has gone through the adolescent stage and for many, being a teenager wasn’t a walk in the park. Contrary to what most people believe, there is not a more awkward stage in life than being a teenager. Do you remember when you just had to fit in? You wanted certain groups of teenagers to accept you, so you always aimed to please. Then, there’s peer pressure. You didn’t want your friends to think you were not “cool” enough so you did the things they told you to do even though your gut was telling you to just walk away. What about the bullies? Most teenagers are “lucky” enough that they get to be bullied by bigger or stronger kids. Oh, let’s not forget the pressure your parents were putting on you to do well in school. The nagging, and getting angry with you for, what seemed at the time, like no good reason. All of these factors affect your child in ways you can’t imagine. This is how normal kids turns into a troubled teens.

You have been told that experience is the best teacher. Then you grew up, found work, perhaps got married, and had children. Going back in time might to being a teenager again might seem like a dream to you. But you may have forgotten about the negatives. Look back and remember. You’ll be surprised and, I’m sure, amused.

So, how can parents deal with troubled teens?

You have to keep in mind that what was going on in your time still exists in the here and now, more so I think. You also need to keep in mind that you are not your children. They are unique individuals who respond differently to various situations. You cannot expect them to act like you nor think like you do because they are not you.

As a parent, you should be aware of what is going on with your teenager’s life. Communicate. What better way to understand him than to talk to him? I know you are tired from work. You have a hectic schedule and so you just leave your child to care for himself because he is old enough. It doesn’t work that way. Your child needs you and you should touch base with him often. Communicate in a way that you both express what is on your minds and not just what is on yours. Make him form his own opinion of things and if differences arise, compare what is similar. Some teenagers, however, don’t want their parents hovering over them every minute. That is so “not cool”. This doesn’t mean that you should do as they ask. Watch over them but don’t overwhelm them with your presence. Guide them but avoid being a dictator. Treat your child with respect and he will show the same to you.

Be funny. Some teenagers take in advice better when it is given with humor. Crack a joke to break the ice. It’s more fun that way. Try to know what areas your teen is good at and give him positive comments. Honestly, many people cannot take in criticisms easily. How much more a teenager?

Unfortunately, there are things that you just cannot control, like, who your children meet in school or outside the school. All the more reason why you should spend more quality time with them.

If you want to learn more about Parenting Troubled teens, I recommend that you look intoThe Total Transformation by James Lehman. He is Bahavioral Therapist and you might want to learn a thing or two from him about parenting troubled teens.

As parents, we all understand the trials of parenting. Mistakes are common; indeed, they are part of the territory. The process of learning to be a parent is difficult, and our first child is always the trial by fire. The second child is almost never as much like the first as we expect, and we learn rapidly that what works with one child doesn’t necessarily work with another.

Even the third and successive children present new problems, frequently revolving around the idea of fairness: the rules for one child should, after all, be the same as the rules for another. Sometimes this can be difficult, and parenting mistakes occur as a result. But how do you fix them – or, even better, avoid them?

One of the most common parenting mistakes is to think that your child doesn’t understand the situation, so it’s not important to be fair. Children have long memories; whenever a situation is important to them, for whatever reason, they will recall that situation for many years to come… potentially into adulthood. Even though your child cannot process and interpret your actions today, those actions may very well be remembered later – and they will be processed and interpreted by an older child, who is more than capable of understanding them.

Another of these parenting mistakes – one almost every parent is guilty of making at some point – is to expect all children to be the same. Whether we’ve got multiple children ourselves, or simply have experience with other people’s children, there are many elements of a child’s personality that simply are not the same as other children. While there are certainly common areas of behavior and intellect among all children, these are not as large as most of us expect.

Which leads us to the last of the common parenting mistakes most parents make: relying too much on our own experiences as children. The way our own parents dealt with situations is not always the best way, and the way we would have liked them handled as children is not always the way we should handle them as parents. Our children are not the same children we were, and they certainly don’t live in the same kind of world.

The most important question, of course, is how do we avoid these parenting mistakes? How do we remain mindful of how our actions will be remembered, understand the differences among children, and avoid too much reliance on our own childhood?

As with most parenting questions, there are no easy answers – but unlike our own parents, there is much more detailed help available. Simple awareness can be enough to avoid these parenting mistakes, but there are many programs available that can help us raise our children effectively and intelligently… without having to become experts in child development ourselves.

There’s no way to avoid all parenting mistakes. We’re human; we make mistakes. But with a little thought and effort, we can avoid the larger ones, and raise our children quite well all the same.

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

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.

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.