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"Rules without relationship leads to rebellion" (Josh McDowell)

The quickest way to change your child’s behaviour is to first change your own.

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.

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

Good parenting requires sacrifice. Childhood lasts for only a few brief years , but it should be given priority while it is passing before your eyes

Early intervention is always better than crisis management - but it is never too late to do the right thing.

The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice. (Peggy O'Mara)

Don't wait for him to turn 10 before you reveal that you are not in fact the hired help whose job it is to clean up after him.

Being a parent of a teenager can cure a person of narcissism.

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

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Taming a Toddler

Most parents of newborns manage pretty well for the first year but as soon a the stubborn, self-centred, unreasonable toddler appears, many parents wonder what has hit them. Small children have an uncanny ability to unravel an adult nervous system. They are noisy and they make incredible messes and they bicker with one another and their noses drip and they scratch the furniture and they have more energy in their little fingers than mom has […]

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Types of Temper Tantrums

There are 2 types of tantrums: manipulative (child is trying to get his own way – conscious, planned, controlled) temperamental (child can’t help it – he is truly “out of control”) Both types can look the same and one form can lead into another. A temperamental tantrum acquires a manipulative quality when the child comes to understand the value of what he’s is doing. Guidelines to Help Distinguish the Two Types the manipulative tantrum is […]

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ADHD

    Some children can’t sit still. They appear distracted by every little thing and don’t seem to learn from their mistakes. These children disregard rules, even when they are punished repeatedly. They tend to act without thinking, and this results in many accidents and reprimands. ADHD is one of the most common reasons children are referred to mental health professionals. Every classroom in the country probably has several children with ADHD. Raising any child […]

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Mom, Dad, think before you act!

    It is easier to stop difficult behaviour before it becomes entrenched. You should be very skeptical of the phrase “I’m just going to do this once” when it pops into your head in moments of parenting stress. Frankly, whatever you’re thinking of doing, you’re unlikely to do it only once. So unless you’re prepared to spend hundreds of hours in a car with your baby, don’t use a car ride to put your […]

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Anger

I find this quote from Gary Chapman intriguing as it relates to temper tantrums and the importance of handling them in a wise fashion. “It may surprise you that the primary lifetime threat to your child is his or her own anger. If your child does not handle his own anger well, it will damage or destroy him. The mishandling of anger is related to every present and future problem your child may have – […]

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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)