Archive for 'obnoxious and abusive children'

Why Kids Are So Angry Most of the Time

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Have you ever heard of the word negative self-thoughts? That is what most kids have. That is also the reason why you hear people often say adolescent angst. Children and even us adults often think of things in a negative way. That is why when children are being talked to by their parents on not sleeping late, they often talk back and shout to their parents. Their line of thought goes like this: “Dad and mom hate me. They don’t want me to enjoy my favorite show at night.”

One of the goals that parents have for their parenting technique is to help their kids have a more positive way of thinking, be that for self-thoughts or as regards everything and everyone around them.

One way to understand this idea that our thoughts create our anger is to understand that people think in words. When we are thirsty for instance, we think of the words “I’m thirsty.” We simply don’t think of a mouth sipping on a glass of cold water.

This is also the same thoughts we have when we talk to ourselves. We often indulge in self-talk. That is the same with kids. Your kids may be at school sitting and looking attentive to the teacher but she is not in fact listening at all. Instead what she’s thinking about is the chat she’s going to have with her three best friends. Or she might be thinking about “Should I have the Mickey Mouse costume or the Fairy Godmother for Halloween?”

Yes, it is indeed true that we adults and kids talk to ourselves most of the time. But kids are often thinking in a way that makes themselves angrier. That’s what parents have to help their kids correct.

Most of the time, it all starts from simple thought of “This isn’t fair.” Then this blows up into something bigger like “They aren’t fair. How come they aren’t fair to me? What can I do to let them realize that it isn’t fair?” and so on and so forth…

One way of thinking that parents must teach their kids in order for them to have more positive thought is to say, “This is not worth it” or “I am not going to do this cause this would make my dad angry and it’s not worth it.”

This is significant since what the kids often think is not “It’s not worth it” but that “It serves him right.” And what happens is that in the end when they suffer the consequences they do think “It’s not worth it.”

Katherine Thompson writes about topics such as dealing with ODD disorder. Learn how to be a more effective parent by visiting her website about problem children.

Parents Must Set a Status Level with Their Kids

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One thing that parents can do to make things clear with their kid is to set up a status level. It’s simple to do. Let’s say Status 1 is where the kid gets to enjoy all the privileges and he basically is able to do what he wants to do. Status 2 on the other hand is that level wherein the child is grounded and all the privileges are taken off him.

You can give it any name you want. The purpose of it is to make things clearer and more like a black a white set-up. So whenever the child misbehaves in school or at home, you can call him and directly say you are now Status B and you’ve lost your privileges. You are going to stay there until such time you decide to follow the rule.

Any parent may think it’s next to impossible to be able to set this up with your kid. Parents can actually verbalize things ideas like this for as long as they approach their child in the right manner. Timing is key to any parenting strategy.

Usually the child is more responsive and receptive when he is happy and during good times. So when he is all smiles while holding his favorite ice cream right in your living room, you can call him and tell him, “You know what, Tommy, am really happy whenever you are in the right side of things, when you’re happy and enjoying all your privileges. I really want you to stay on that level for as you can. Why don’t we make it a rule between the two of us? Let’s call it Status 1 when you are enjoying all the privileges and Status 2 when you are grounded and you don’t get to enjoy any privileges at all.

It’s just like that and there’s a 101% chance that the child will listen to you and agree with you; that is all because you said it to him when he is happy and feeling light.

So what happens here is when you ask your child to talk to you after he did something in school or after he flunked out of Algebra and he simple refuses to do so you tell him, “Tommy, until such time you are going to come to me and talk to me about what happened, you are still in Status 2.”

One thing that you have to be sure about is that once your child comes to you and tells you about what happened you switch him back to Status 1 wherein he is back to enjoying all his privileges.

You have to remember when you do this that you are not to forcing him to do it and that you are doing this for his own benefit and that you are merely convincing him or supporting him to stay within the family boundaries and the good side of things.

Katherine Thompson writes about topics such as dealing with ODD. Learn how to be a more effective parent by visiting her website about my problem children.

The Right Time to Teach Children the Right Behavior

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Parents often suffer one major problem when teaching their child discipline and right behavior. When they have everything all planned, down to the list of strategies they can suggest to their child, the child simply refuses to sit down and talk to them.

There’s one factor that makes them do this: stress. Children are smart. They know when they are about to be confronted about something they did in school. Most often, they can get clues from the parent’s tone of voice and his facial expression. That’s why parents must think of a way to get their ideas through the child thoroughly.

The rule of thumb here is “Don’t talk to your child when he is shouting or when he is agitated.” In this instance, his mind is not open. He is stressed and most probably, he can’t take in any idea from anybody.

Timing is the key to everything. Start the conversation with your child during good times, meaning when he is happy, during ice cream time, while you are popping corn for a late night TV show. Then comes the “hypodermic affection” technique. This is done by telling the child the good deeds he has done first then attach a task that he’s going to accomplish.

The parent can say nonchalantly, “You did a great job there, Tommy, about going home early after school. You keep on doing that and you’re on your way to earning that weekend trip to Yosemite with dad and me. Now let’s discuss about the way you talk to your sister.”

With these said, the child won’t feel that he is being reprimanded or that he is being talked into doing something. And because he is feeling light, relaxed and happy at this time, all the ideas that are discussed with mom or dad are easy to settle in.

What must parents do then if the child is restless and stressed? Aside from giving him space, you give him a real time-out. A time-out is a time for him to go to some place that’s neutral and quiet where he can calm down, collect his thoughts, and let the agitation simmer down.

Parents must then wait for the right moment when the child becomes his old self again, when he is light and gay. That is the right time when you can engage your child in a light banter and inject the tasks you set for him without him feeling it.

Katherine Thompson writes about topics such as dealing with ODD disorder. Learn how to be a more effective parent by visiting her website about my problem children.

Let the Child Choose His Coping Mechanism

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There are several things that your child can do to cope with the concern regarding his misbehavior. The best thing that a parent can do after he lets the child figure out for himself what his coping strategies are is to let him choose what he wants if in case the same situation comes about again.

“What will you do when you go home one day and you want to ride your bike yet I won’t let you because you still have home work to do? Do you think it will do you good if you walk away for a bit? What will I expect you to do in that instance? What will you do that you haven’t done now” This is an example of letting your child choose from any of his options for dealing with the concern at hand.

But just in case he has problem rephrasing his own coping strategy or simply putting it into words, you can help him do it well. One tip to make sure that the choices will work to his utmost advantage is to make it time focused. You can show this with the use of words like “in the future,” “tomorrow” or “the next day.”

One possible answer that your child may give is that “he will take a time out.” Then you try to motivate him to do that as well by saying, “Okay that’s a good idea.”

However, you as a parent must help your child understand the principle behind what a time out is. Time out is that time when you go to a neutral place, often a silent place, to gather your thoughts or simply to let your overstimulation simmer down. This is what your child needs the moment he gets agitated over something.

Also one common mistake that parents commit is they consider time outs as punishments. Time out is not a punishment. It is a time for your kid to calm down and clear out his mind so he will be able to resolve the issues involved in the incident.

It’s not like saying, “Okay so you misbehave in school and your teacher said he saw you kicked a girl. Now you’re going to take a time out and sit on that chair for two hours every day.” The use of the word time out in this scenario is not accurate.

A time out is supposed to help the child calm down but not to punish him or to take away certain privileges.

Katherine Thompson writes about topics such as dealing with ODD. Learn how to be a more effective parent by visiting her website about problem child.

Probe Your Child When He Misbehaves

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When your child misbehaves, the best thing you can do to get his thoughts about the incident is to probe on the matter. This is significant for you to help your child come up with some coping skills each time problems arise.

You can ask your child questions like, “What are you gonna do the next time your classmate bullies you in school? Are you gonna pick a fight again?” Or it could be, “What are you going to do when you’re angry at someone cause you were not allowed to do something?”

These kids may not have something to answer when you ask such questions to them. If this happens the best thing for you to do is to help him articulate what you think is a good coping mechanism.

You can ask him, “Isn’t it wise to just listen to your iPod first before you speak about the matter particularly if you are still angry about it?” Or when you are feeling angry over something that’s not allowed for you to use, do you think walking away for a while will do the trick?”

Coping skills are one of the significant things that you must teach your child. This will be a measure of his being responsible in his adult life once he knows some great coping mechanisms to go for all the problems that might come his way.

Children have different coping mechanisms. You as a parent can determine what those are. It could be walking away, listening to the radio, going to the beach, swimming, or even merely playing his favorite video game.

Let the child realize what his coping mechanisms are. Then you help him figure out himself what coping mechanism to use the next time the same situation happens again. You can ask him, “Are you going to walk around the block the next time you’re angry at your brother or are you going to listen to your iPod?”

The child will either give you his choice or he may come up with his own. What’s significant is that the child will be able to quantify his coping mechanisms. This will ensure that the next time he encounters a problem he will know how to deal with it. It may not be a head-on collision all the time but what’s essential is that he has experienced how it is to devise some means to cope with any problems that arise.

Katherine Thompson writes about topics such as how to deal with ODD. Learn how to be a more effective parent by visiting her website about my problem child.

Declare Your Rule To Your Child in Black and White

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There’s no point in identifying, confronting, and challenging the triggers if you are not going to declare your rule about it. One thing to remember when you declare your rule is to keep ti simple with no emotions involved, simply in black and white.

A parent can say to the child, “Don’t talk to me that way because I told you not to be verbally abusive to your sister. I won’t let you talk to me that way.” Or you could say, “Don’t turn your back on me just because you don’t want to hear what I’m going to tell you.”

You can also say to your child, “If you think that I’m being unfair doesn’t mean you can call me names.” Or you can tell him straight to his face, “Just because you think that your sister is not being nice to you, you can steal from her. This behavior is not right and it’s not acceptable at all. If you want to communicate with me don’t talk to me that way.”

In this case what you are doing is telling your child that he doesn’t have any alternative but to do what you suggest him to do. It’s all in black and white. It’s your way of saying that he would suffer from the consequences of what he has done. It’s your way of making him realize that he would not have certain privileges until such time he takes into account and practice all the alternative behaviors for making him behave well.

This is what responsible love and concern is all about. When a parent does this with his child, he must state it in a matter of fact way without any emotions involved. He should be doing it in the kitchen table in a one-on-one setting. It’s very business-like, very serious, and matter of factly, which will make him realize that you are not intent on making him do the alternative behavior.

You as a parent must also let him understand that there are two things that he should bear in mind always when it comes to his behavior and these are: 1) what are its effects to others or 2) if it solves the problem at all.

It’s your responsibility to tell your child that it’s not a good behavior if it hurts other people or if it doesn’t solve the problem.

Katherine Thompson writes about topics such as how to deal with ODD kids. Learn how to be a more effective parent by visiting her website about problem child.

The Child Must Challenge and Confront His Own Perceptions

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The ultimate reason why the parent must challenge the wrong behavior of the child is for the child to challenge his own perceptions in the end. That’s why it’s not enough that the parent would let the child understand that what the child has is the wrong perception of what happened. He also has to confront the triggers and challenge them.

An example of how to do it would be to tell your child, “The rules seem to change when I said no to you when you asked me to drive you to your friend’s house last Friday.” It could also be in this way, “The rule of not stealing no longer applies when I told you to study on the kitchen table instead of your room.”

That’s the vital part about identifying the triggers of your child’s behavior. You simply have to find them out in order for you to challenge them. Basically, you challenge the triggers through putting your ideas into words. It’s the parent’s way of saying that rules should not change because you feel bad about me telling you no. The about not being verbally abusive to your siblings stays there even if I don’t let you play your video game on a Monday night.

More often a child would say, “Well, I shouted to Helen because she was not being nice to me.” Or he might say, “I don’t like math and doing the home work makes me sleepy all the time.”

What the parent must do is to challenge it by saying, “So just because you find it hard to stay up while doing your math home work, the rule about doing your home work changes?” Kids don’t have answers to statements like this. Another statement that kids are fond of making when they misbehave is that they say because you made me angry.

The parent would have to confront the issue then by saying, “Because you’re angry at me doesn’t make it okay for you to call me bad names.” And if your kid tries to evade the matter by saying for example, “That’s crazy,” then you tell him then you are not ready for this confrontation.

You as a parent must then make your child realize that this is supposed to be an honest conversation between you and him and that both of you must be committed to it. Then you must make him realize that he won’t be able to have the privileges back until such time he realized that the rules are set and that he should follow it.

The child must realize that whenever he does something unacceptable, there are consequences to it and the privileges will not be given back to him until such time he does the alternative behavior.

Katherine Thompson writes about topics such as how to deal with ODD kids. Learn how to be a more effective parent by visiting her website about my problem children.

How to Bring the Kid’s Focus to the Real Problem

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There’s one thing that your kid is more likely to do when you are confronting him head-on even if you are not blaming him or you are extra nice when you do so. Your kid will most likely resort to being emotional. He will lash out his anger at you and badmouth you or be verbally abusive to the other kids who he thinks has wronged him.

So when a parent is trying to help his kid come up with new strategies for behavioral change, he must keep that focus. It’s helpful to have a list with you when you are discussing things with your child. What can be part of the list is: discussion of how he doesn’t do his homework regularly or how he managed to steal $10 from his dad’s pockets while he is asleep.

It may be a bit funny and awkward but it is also a way of showing that you are dealing with the matter in all seriousness. Remember the concept of running your household and your family concerns just like you do with your business.

What a parent should do is to tell the child, “You know the last time you think that I am being unfair to you, you punched a hole in the wall. Your teacher can attest to that. As what you can see, Tommy, that’s just not working, no matter how many times you are going to do that.”

Usually to get away from it, the child will resort to “wishful thinking.” The child would usually say, “Okay, mum, I won’t do it ever again.” When the parent asks his child what he is going to do, he would simply say, “I just won’t do it ever again, okay?” Most likely after some time he will do it again.

As a parent then, it’s your responsibility to tell your child head-on, “Well, Tommy, I don’t think that wishful thinking is ever going to work at all. We simply have to be more focused and come up with another strategy here.

It also helps if you let the child realize that the more he sticks with the “wishful thinking” part, the more he is getting himself into trouble. This is a good way of keeping him focused and making him realize the significance of the matter.

Katherine Thompson writes about topics such as how to deal with ODD kids. Learn how to be a more effective parent by visiting her website about problem children.

Identifying Triggers of Bad Behavior with Your Child

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Most often the kids won’t be able to figure out the triggers of their negative behavior. When this happens the parents can help the children realize those triggers without having to result to backtracking and blaming.

Kids are prone to pulling their parents back to that incident and making them feel that they should be guilty. This is where parents must take control of the situation.

It’s best to talk to your child and let him realize his own triggers by asking him questions such as, “When was the last time you talked dirty to your sister?” it’s that time she didn’t allow you to drive the car so late at night.” Or it could be, “The last time you bad mouthed me was when I didn’t allow you to drink up until late Friday night with some friends.”

It’s also pertinent that the parent would let his or her child feel that it’s his perception of what happened that mist be wrong, again without the parent finger pointing at the child. It’s like saying, “Tommy, I know what you think there is that I have been unfair to you. But what exactly happened is this… When you don’t get what you want, this usually triggers the bad side of Tommy. It’s all about what you think of took place in the incident and there are times when what he think is not really what happened there.”

The important thing in this scenario is for the child to express his views, his ideas and whatever he thinks is happening. As a parent, you must also make your kid understand that perceptions of what’s happening may differ in every person and it may be that what one person thinks of what happened is not what really happened.

The most common reaction of the child in this situation is to start bringing up the emotional side of it. This is when the blaming and the crying would try to make you as a parent start to feel guilty yourself.

But that shouldn’t be the case. As a parent, you should see to it that you keep your focus. But as a parent, you have to remember that when your child starts getting emotional about it, it’s not because he is intending to hurt you or he is plotting it. The child simply doesn’t know how to handle the situation and this is his way of doing it.

Katherine Thompson writes about topics such as dealing with ODD disorder. Learn how to be a more effective parent by visiting her website about my problem children.

Confronting Your Child for His Misbehavior

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When your child misbehaves one of the things a parent dreads is confronting him. But when we say confront, it doesn’t mean you are being hostile to your child. Nor does it mean arguments or shouting or having to throw dirty stuff at each other.

Confronting is much like meeting someone head-on honestly. This would mean having to tell the child what you saw happened or what the teacher saw or the child’s guardian saw. Of course in a confrontation you must give the child enough time to express his own perception of what happened. Then you tell him what you saw happened. It’s more like comparing his perceptions with the facts of what took place.

There are so many instances when a parent must do it. An example would be to tell the child, “I know that it how you feel and sometimes things do happen. I don’t think you’re crazy to be thinking that way but here is what I saw. When I got inside the room I saw you grab your brother’s hair and I heard you shout to your sister.” Or it could also be, “I know that you hate being disturbed when you are reading silently in school but here is what your teacher said. You suddenly threw the book you were reading towards your seatmate.”

One thing that a parent has to remember is that with confrontation what you actually want is to change his behavior and not his reasons or his feelings. That’s the logic behind having to compare his perceptions, his thoughts, and his ideas with what really happened. So when he starts to jump in to his own version of what happened you simply have to refocus him to the present.

In the end, the child may still think that it is unfair to him that he gets reprimanded over having to talk back to his sister that way, but still you as a parent has got him to do it anyway.

The parent in other words has to be reminded of what his purpose is for the confrontation, which is to change the kid’s behavior and not his perception of his behavior. Try to remember that in the end what matters is that the child gets to behave well in school. The realization may happen later when he gets older, which is usually the case.

Children are not morally upright yet. Nor are they aware of their wrong behavior that’s why parents should be there to guide then all the way by being role models.

Katherine Thompson writes about topics such as dealing with ODD disorder. Learn how to be a more effective parent by visiting her website about my problem children.

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