Archive for 'obnoxious and abusive kids'

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.

Stop Blaming Your Kids

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Rearing a child especially in this very modern and all-accessible world can be quite a handful, doubly difficult if you have a couple or more kids in tow. Unlike before when parents’ words are considered commands and they have to really be followed to the letter, children nowadays are exposed to too much information that molds them into very smart kids, too smart for comfort.

But it is not bad at all to expose out children to data that they can use in the future as long as you are to filter the information that is coming in. Keep in mind that children’s brains work like sponges and they easily absorb almost anything that they see especially if no one is there to contest it.

In the book Nobody Knows My Name written by James Baldwin, Baldwin states that: “Children have never been very good at listening to their elders. But they have never failed to imitate them.” This dilemma encapsulates the general situation parents are trapped in.

Some parents, in their efforts to make their children listen to them, in their eagerness to instill what they think is correct, sometimes become too forceful in their attempts and overshoots the goal of making the children listen, really listen.

You see, there is a huge difference between children listening when they are being scolded than children listening when their parents are explaining in a calm and disarming manner. In the heat of the moment, particularly when the kids have done something quite terrible, parents forget the proper way to address such situation, give in to the outbursts of emotions and immediately blame the child or kid for the error done.

Blaming the kids is actually not the strategic way to approach such a situation. Instead of fixing the issue, we might only be driving the problem into the hearts of the children. And when blame is directed to the children consistently, there may come a time that they will unconsciously believe that they are really the one to blame for anything negative that is happening.

This is extremely bad for the child’s psyche because you will only be inculcating in his or her mind that he or she is not good at anything and whatever he or she does may turn into a disaster. In time, this negative feeling will turn into deeper psychologically stressing issues like anxiety, clinical depression, loss of confidence, low self esteem, and eventually even manifest in physical symptoms like headaches and such.

There is a tactful way of addressing such situations and that would be sitting down and discussing in a very composed manner the issue at hand. For example, ask how your child feels after a negative thing has been done. And then, discuss with the child the possible repercussions of his behavior and how it will affect not only other people’s lives but his as well.

Is spoiled brat camp beneficial for your child? Visit Katherine Thompson at her website about problem child.

All about Projection

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When parents pass on their emotional baggage to their child, the concept of projection happens. Projection can affect a child’s life in great proportions in one or more aspects of his or her life. The effects of projection could be so serious, it could increase a child’s vulnerability to certain behavioral and emotional imbalances.

Children usually inherit or adapt to certain things that they pick up at home, from and through the kind of relationships that they have with their parents. The problem begins when children starts to get nothing but the sensitive issues that their parents carry in their backs – the need for attention or social approval, difficulty in dealing with certain expectations, and the tendency to blame oneself.

Because children are young and fragile, they become very susceptible to inheriting the relationship problems of their parents such as feeling responsible for the happiness of others and vice versa as well as acting impulsively in order to relieve the feeling of anxiety instead of enduring that anxiety for a while to act thoughtfully. The stronger the projection of the parents, the stronger relationship baggage the child inherits from his or her parents.

When a person has too much relationship sensitivity, his or her vulnerability to emotional and behavioral problems can result to a a chronic anxiety in all aspects of one’s life. The process of projection occurs in three stages.

First, the parent sees the child with the fear that something is wrong with the child. Second, the parent sees any behavior of the child as a confirmation of that fear. And third, the parent treats the child as if something is actually wrong with him or her.

The steps of projection usually begin while the child is still young and continues until the child gets older. It is the unrealistic fear of the parents that inspires the problem – the child learns to develop or shape his or her perceptions of the world and of others according to what his or her parents think, embodying the fears and distorted perceptions themselves.

The concept of projection becomes a self fulfilling prophecy because the parents constantly try to “fix” the problem of the child according to their personal diagnosis. So when a parent believes that her child has a low self esteem, she will repeatedly affirm the child which consequently leads to the child’s self esteem growing dependent on that affirmation.

A lot of things can go wrong the moment the concept of projection occurs in a family. It could lead to a sibling rivalry, since the other “normal” siblings will not get as much attention as the child who “needs fixing” gets. Parents will also feel confused about their roles and both will often feel unsure of themselves and the kind of relationship that they have with their child.

Author Katherine Thompson enjoys sharing on topics including boot camp for teens. Learn how to be a better parent by visiting her website about my problem child.

Project Attainable Expectations to Your Kids

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Everywhere we go, we are bound with certain expectations. There are certain expectations that we have to live up to at work – we need to perform our jobs right, help our co-workers finish a project, and so on. In school, we are also expected to make our assignments and to study. All relationships that we have and in every affiliation or association that we make, there are certain expectations that we have to fulfill.

At home, there are also certain expectations that we have to live up to. The main reason why families function well and remain united is due to the fulfilling of expectations by each family member. Parents are expected to provide for the family and offer food, clothing, comfort and love. Children are also expected to help with chores, to study, and to respect and love their parents.

One good way to avoid family conflicts is to make sure expectations from each member especially that of the children, are clear. As a parent, you need to create a list of expectations that apply to certain situations. By creating a list of expectations for your kids, you are telling them in a way what they should do during certain situations.

When you make your expectations clear to your kids, you are telling them their limitations in the process. Through a list of expectations, children know how they can interact with their friends, with strangers, and even with their romantic partners. By creating a list of expectations, you will be able to effectively show your children how to behave in church, at a restaurant, and in any public place.

However, you need to be consistent with your expectations. The moment you tell your kids that you expect them to be home by 8 p.m. sharp, it should always remain that way. Your expectations should not be variable and should not be easily affected by your mood or your opinion. Your expectations should always remain firm, even when your child feels otherwise.

So when your child gets a high score at test, it does not earn him the right to disrespect you. Even when your child has no school for two days, it does not mean that he or she is allowed to stay up all night and watch TV.

But the most important thing that you have to remember is to make your expectations realistic and reliable. Setting expectations that are too high or too low will lead to mediocre results. That is why you need to keep your expectations at normal, attainable levels and with respect to your child’s age.

Realistic and reasonable expectations will not make your child feel incompetent. Projecting expectations that are too high to attain will only make your child feel like he or she is “not good enough”. Too high expectations will make your child feel less about themselves and will make you unhappy and disappointed all the time.

Author Katherine Thompson enjoys sharing on topics including teens for boot camp. Learn how to be a better parent by visiting her website about my problem children.

Projections Get in the Way of Parenting

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What you mean by projecting is reading other people’s minds. What happens when you do projection is just like a movie projector. When you feel bad about yourself it is being projected into another person. That’s when you think that they do think poorly of you.

You simply think that it’s a way of reading minds but in fact what you’re doing is you’re putting your own fear and your own self-doubt in the other person’s mind. This doesn’t work for you or for your kids when you’re parenting.

There are times when everything goes wrong and if you see it that way you might translate it as what your child thinks, to the detriment of your own kid. If you want to raise highly positive children you have to be positive yourself. You have to funnel your positivity to your kid. But remember it’s not all blue skies. Being positive doesn’t mean being delusional. When reality bites, you have to make it a point that your kid may be able to understand what you’re going through in their own simple way.

Projections can also happen the other way around. Sometimes kids also project what they feel towards themselves to you. When this happens you need to keep on reassuring them that what you think of them is exactly the opposite of that. You have to keep giving positive reassurance when this happens. Always make them feel that you’re accepting and that you understand how they feel, but there’s one thing you shouldn’t do and that is to make them see that you’re giving up on them.

Projecting is a symptom of an unhealthy mind. When you tend to project negativity, you probably have low self-esteem, have been hiding a lot of issues, and may even have issues about self-respect. However, when you project yourself too positively, it may be that you have superiority complex or have high self-esteem, which may sometimes be not that good as well.

That’s why they say that we all are a work in progress. We always have to check ourselves and try to make sure that we make a balanced thought of our surroundings and other people. We do this for our kids, for our loved ones, but most of all, for ourselves.

We owe it ourselves to experience life positively and to experience all our relationships positively. If we love in this manner, no amount of negativity can bring us down, whatever our goal may be, but most particularly when we are trying to raise our children.

Author Katherine Thompson enjoys sharing on topics including boot camp teens. Learn how to be a better parent by visiting her website about problem children.

Teach Your Kids to Be Honest

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Finding out that your child has lied to you is utterly heartbreaking. After that one incident, you begin to feel apprehensive every time your child tells you something. After knowing for a fact that your child is capable of lying, you find it hard to trust anything that your child tells you. A sound child and parent relationship does not work that way, which is why you need to learn how to handle it.

While parents try as much as they can to let their children know the importance of honesty, there are still a few times when children forget about it. Because they are young, children are prone to shortcuts, failures, and temptations. These natural tendencies often lead to an occasional untruth, called the “white lie”.

A while lie is generally “harmless”, but then again kids can easily understand it in the wrong way. In order to prevent your kids from dishonesty, you have to nip the problem right in the bud. So that your kids will be discouraged from lying you have to teach them how to be honest.

The first step in teaching honesty is making your expectations of honesty very clear. You have to let your child know that telling the truth is very much important, therefore he should aim for it as much as possible. Tell your child that there are consequences for lying. As early as possible, nurture honesty in your kids as a desirable character trait.

But teaching your kids about being honest when you are dishonest yourself is just purely wrong. If you want to show your kids the importance of honesty, model honest behavior to your child. Prevent yourself from telling lies or misrepresenting facts. Kids are very keen observers and they know when they are being lied to, so do not risk it.

You have to reinforce any act of honesty too. When you reward your kids every time they tell the truth, you are also encouraging them to continue the behavior. Every time your kid is honest during a difficult situation, praise them for making the right move. After telling the truth about a sensitive situation, appreciate them.

It is very important that you believe your kids. So when you feel that your child is not telling you the truth, do not jump into hasty conclusions right away. Before you make any judgments, evaluate the facts first. It is very important that you find out for a fact that your kids are telling the truth or not before you accuse them of lying.

Teaching kids how to be honest is a daunting task. But if you make honesty a principle to live by, following through with it might not be as difficult. Take every opportunity there is and share the value of honesty with your kids as much as you can.

Author Katherine Thompson enjoys sharing on topics including boot camp teens. Learn how to be a better parent by visiting her website about my problem child.

Don’t Act on Feelings

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Feelings only possess the value that you put on them. Don’t let the feelings or the emotions be the basis of your decision. These are not a good guide for making a decision regarding your child. It may be good but only when you talk about a situation where feelings were hurt.

The cliché “Don’t decide when you’re emotional” is in fact true when you are dealing with your child. This is because most often when these feelings wane, you will realize you have made the wrong decision and chances are, it may be difficult to repair the damage done.

An example of this is when your child bought himself a PSP from his own savings and you due to fear that he might not be able to cope with his home work and activities in school decided to sell the PSP without your child’s permission. That fear may be the anger you feel as well upon learning that your child made a decision without consulting you.

There’s a fat chance that your child will forever be doing this if you insisted to do it your way. These things could have been discussed with your child. One thing that he must understand is that even when he has the resources to buy it, he must consult with his mother if it is a good decision.

Again, emotions can be too powerful for kids to control and they have not developed the right elements to handle them. That’s why it is significant that you as parents are there to filter the things that may happen to them as well as the possible emotions that they may feel in every situation, special the critical ones, such as divorce.

You as a parent therefore must not be emotional when making a decision particularly if it’s about your child. You have to be an example of a well-balanced person to him and always make sure that when you decide on something about your child even if it’s about punishment, you must first consider his benefit and well-being.

Author Katherine Thompson enjoys sharing on topics including boot camp for teens. Learn how to be a better parent by visiting her website about my problem children.

All About Emotionalizing

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Emotions sometimes play a vital role in a decision making process. A person may make an irrational decision especially if he has a negative attitude and is hot tempered. But what will happen as a consequence may not bring in good results. When emotional intensity takes over rational decision making, your brain may not work anymore because you shut it completely. You let your feelings influence your decision making capability.

Anger and stress usually turn out as negative emotions. These negative emotions can affect a person’s decision making capabilities. The result would be an irrational and not so sensible decision.

What a person can do is control the intensity of these emotions. He can then slowly convert these negative emotions into positive ones. By having the ability to cool down, relax and absorb everything around you, you can then have time to do some intellectual analysis. You’ll have time to think and plan on what the sensible decision to make.

Your ability to recognize and manage emotions can be a good coping mechanism in handling these negative emotions. Using humor and the ability to connect with other people’s emotions through non-verbal communications can easily bring you towards attaining positive attitude. These can lead you to give a more logical analysis on things before making the decision-making.

Getting emotions override your logical functions may not give you good decision results. A good example would be if you are interviewing an applicant for a certain position in your company. Don’t get emotions overrule your intellectual rationalization. If you have gut feelings that this applicant cannot be your brilliant employee because of his appearance or the way he conducts himself in your presence – you might be wrong.

Perceptions may not give you a good decision result. You may see an applicant and perceive him to be successful because of the way he talks – you may find out later that he is lazy. You have to base your selection on what his qualifications are, and how the selection process really turns out. Your decision must not be based on emotions or just your gut feelings.

Emotions can really get in the way of your decision making process if you let it override your logical way of analyzing things. Remember that emotions use only your heart and how you feel for a particular thing. Your brain was not given the opportunity to weigh the facts in order for a logical decision to be made.

A person may have a high ego and not readily accept that he can make a wrong decision. His line of thinking would be that his giving the decision was the more logical decision that can be made. What people should remember is that the brain is way over his heart. Therefore, it commands the better logic than his feelings.

Author Katherine Thompson enjoys sharing on topics including boot camp teens. Learn how to be a better parent by visiting her website about my problem child.

What to Do with Negative Kids

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Kids often have faulty thoughts especially about themselves. That’s what’s happening when you tell your daughter, “You look so pretty today” and she responds with “Oh mom, you are just saying that because you’re my mother.” When kids do that, you need to reinforce positivity to her. The way to do that is to say for example, “Oh well, you truly look pretty, whether you want to hear it or not.” Or you can say too, “No, I’m saying that to you because I do love you,” or “I’m saying that to you because I love what you did.”

They say it’s only the positive thoughts that can do away with the negative. This thinking error that your kids commit must be corrected; otherwise, they will be suffering from low self-esteem in the long run, especially in their adult life. One way to change the negativity in your kids is to always divert him into the positive. Being his role model, it is not so difficult for him to emulate your positivity, giving him the upper hand among children who are prone to the sometimes overcritical minds of parents and most of their accompanying adults.

Pretension is also a good means to keep your child protected from the many harsh realities of life. It’s a bad idea to show your kid the real world when it’s too harsh for his innocent and morality-challenged mind to accept or understand. Remember that moral development comes late in the stages of human life cycle. Young kids don’t have a concept of morality yet in them and that’s why it is often called foundation years. Parents simply have to make sure they start with a good, strong moral foundation.

When parents are able to provide a good foundation for morality in their kids, they are sure to linger on the positive things that life can offer and may tend to evade those that will lead them to sin, to despair, or to anything negative. Remember, reinforcing the positive may require a lot of strategies. It varies according to the personality of your child. That and many other factors to consider.

A positive child will grow up to be a well-balanced and well-adjusted individual in the future, the type who can survive any condition he may be thrown in. That’s why you must envelop your kid with positivity and this is only possible with your responsible love and concern for your kid.

Author Katherine Thompson enjoys sharing on topics including boot camp for teens. Learn how to be a better parent by visiting her website about my problem child.

Dealing with Kids’ Use of the Hypodermic Focus

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When we speak of hypodermic focus this ultimately means that only a portion of the whole thing actually exists in our rational thinking hence we end up focusing only on the part of the whole and draw our conclusion about anything from here. Most often, hypodermic focus is used by kids – among society’s age groups. Although it may be said that some adults use this as well, it can be rarely seen and felt.

It is often a wonder for some parent why kids use hypodermic focus and not be like themselves who actually consider things in totality before finally coming up with a conclusion. Well this is why they are “not adults yet” in the first place. Unlike adults, kids can’t fully understand everything – even the less complicated ones.

Kids need constant assurance of love and security hence the fact that they are still in the stage of “rationalizing” things as they see and feel it. They are not so sure whether you actually accept them as they are or only love them because of a part or portion of their being. Because of the lack of security kids interpret things according to their “little or limited understanding”.

For example, if you tell them that “I am angry at you today because of what you did”. Kids would take this as “I am angry at you” only and disregard the whole idea. With but a harmless form of telling your kid that what he did is wrong and should be corrected, he might take this as you hating him as a whole.

It is essential that we are extra careful of the things that we utter and always supplement it with a more thorough explanation especially when this deals with a reprimand or instruction of discipline. This is where we often create the “make or break” in our child’s security of themselves and our love and relationship with them.

When you say “I am angry at you today because of what you did” try to explain and re-iterate to your kid that you are only annoyed with the thing that he did today but that you don’t hate him as a whole. It helps to always emphasize your anger at the act but not at the person so that your kids could understand that he is still loved.

As a parent or adult, it is important that you patiently explain things to kids because their perception of things in general is dependent on how accurate and well you do so. From here, hypodermic focus may be addressed positively.

In conclusion, our kids’ total belief in things and life in general depends on how we perform as parents and adults. Be sure to give the appropriate action in correcting some of our kids’ inadequacy in understanding due to their young age including hypodermic focus.

Do your kids have problems such as ADHD? Katherine Thompson would like to share her adhd solutions by visiting her website about my problem child.

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