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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.

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

Many clinicians find it easier to tell parents their child has a brain-based disorder than suggest parenting changes. Jennifer Harris (psychiatrist)

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

It's more effective to reward your child for being "good" (appropriate) than to punish him for being "bad" (inappropriate).

"Parents aren't the cause of ADHD, but they are part of the solution." (Kenny Handleman, M.D.)

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.

Criticism is not a motivator.

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.

A tantruming toddler is a little ball of writhing muscle and incredible strength. It's like trying to carry a greased pig past a slop bucket.

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Temper Tantrums

 

 

 

 

“Temper tantrums come in all shapes and sizes, various decibel levels , and a myriad of duration spans. There are vertical temper tantrums, characterized by foot stomping and yelling; horizontal tantrums, in which the child beats or flails arms and legs in furious motions; and total body tantrums, where the child begins screeching in a vertical stance, then dashes herself to the floor and beats hands and feet in a synchronized chaos of jerks and thuds.

Whatever method the child chooses, there are several truisms regarding tantrums:

1. they happen to everyone

2. they are a predictable part of a child’s development

3. they are  unpredictable as to specific time , place and cause

4. the underlying cause may be as minor as a mother’s denial of a second piece of cake or as major as deciding from

which side of the car to exit

5. the length of tantrum endurance of the tantrummer (child) always far exceeds that of the tantrummee (parent)

Most tantrums from young children occur for the following reason. The child, usually beginning at about 2 years old, is beginning to learn the skills (and the difficulties) of decision making. And he is beginning to sense and assert a little spark inside that flickers with that wonderful feeling of independence. This, in itself, makes not getting one’s way extremely unnerving to the child. But he’s not verbal yet, rather, a physical being in everything he does. Thus we have the tantrum – an effective way to let emotions loose, vent all frustration, and shout “I’m me!” all at the same time.

“That’s fine,” we parents say. We understand. If understanding is the first plateau of tantrum solving, then the second is a veritable Mt. Everest. We still have to live through it.”       (source unknown)

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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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See more of our workshops


Contact

2720 Rath Street, Putnam, Ontario
NOL 2BO

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

Email: info@rickharper.ca

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“I wish we had found Rick 2 years ago. We could have saved ourselves and our son a lot of trouble.”

(T.T. – Byron)