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Children mimic well. They catch what they see better than they follow what they hear.

Relationships matter:  change comes through forming trusting relationships. People, not programs change people.

If it  was going to be easy to raise kids, it never would have started with something called "labour".

"To be a man, a boy must see a man."  (J.R. Moehringer)

"The thing that impresses me most about North America is the way parents obey their children"    (King Edward VII , 1841-1910)

The teenage years require a delicate balance between the young person's need to gain independence, and the parent's need to retain authority.

Whining and crying are employed by kids for the purpose of getting something. If it works, then it was worth the effort and will be repeated.

Hurt people hurt people.

The challenge of adolescence is to balance the right of the parents to feel they are in charge with the need of the adolescent to gain independence.

Children today are under enormous pressures rarely experienced by their parents or grandparents. Many of today's children are being enticed to grow up too quickly and are encountering challenges for which they are totally unprepared.

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Violent Video Games

 

 

The following is a scene from Grand Theft Auto : Vice City. It is a first person game where the player controls all the characters and is awarded points for behaving in certain ways.

You steal a geek’s Corvette and speed along Miami’s roadways. You turn up the volume on the car’s radio. You see a pretty woman standing beside the road and slam on the brakes. She walks over to your car, smiles and asks “You want to have a good time?”. She’s a prostitute. You let her in the car, have simulated sex with her, then shoot her in the head with the pistol you stole earlier from a policemen you murdered. As she dies, blood pouring from her head, you retrieve the money you gave her.

In this game you get extra points for shooting the prostitute and are awarded double points for shooting police officers.

The experts do not all agree about the effect  these types of games have on  our young people but there is a growing body of evidence that  links violent video games with serious anti social behaviour. Professor Craig Anderson (Iowa State University) says the evidence is every bit as strong as the evidence linking second-hand smoke to lung cancer. (“Violent Video Games: Myths,facts and unanswered questions”, Psychological Science Agenda, volume 16, October 2003)

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Workshops

+ Behaviour Management (now available online)

This full day or 2 evening workshop will introduce you […]

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+ A Parent’s Guide to the Teenage Brain

  A teenager’s brain is not just an adult brain […]

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+ Reading Rescue

A program for children with reading problems

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+ A Guided Tour of ADHD (now available online)

This workshop will present the facts, myths, misconceptions, controversy and […]

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Contact

2720 Rath Street, Putnam, Ontario
NOL 2BO

Phone: (519) 485-4678
Fax: (519) 485-0281

Email: info@rickharper.ca

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Parents' Comments

“Implementing Rick’s techniques and adhering to them is exhausting, but it is a healthy exhaustion rather than the detrimental exhaustion I used to experience.”

(B.F. – Woodstock)