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

Hurt people hurt people.

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

Parents are the external regulator for kids who cannot regulate themselves.

We should not medicate the boys so they fit the school; we should change the school to fit the boy. (Leonard Sax, M.D. Ph.D)

You cannot reason with someone who is being unreasonable.

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.

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

The more 2 parents differ in their approaches to discipline, the more likely it leads to trouble for the child.

Simple rules adhered to when children are young can prevent more serious problems later.

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Lying

 

 

LYING
Little children keep no secrets –
but that changes overtime.
 
At some point children realize that parents are not all knowing. It becomes possible to influence what their parents know about their actions and thoughts. They learn that information is power and concealing information makes them feel powerful. Lying and truth telling have powerful consequences and the drive to gain control of those consequences by hiding truth is something that manifests itself early in life.
 
Early psychologists took the position that children did not have the intellectual capacity to lie (eg. Jean Piaget). New evidence suggests that even young children sometimes do lie.
 
Motivations for lying:
                  a) to avoid punishment
                  b) to keep a “game” going
                  c) to keep a promise (eg. this will be our secret)
                  d) to gain something personally
                  e) to avoid being embarrassed
                  f)  to build themselves up
 
Children will lie about events when they have sufficient reason to gain something by lying.
 
Often parents have a difficult time accepting this fact. “My child would not lie to me. I know him. I would know if she lied to me.” We want so much to extend the days of childhood innocence for as long as possible, until all proof to the contrary has been established.
 
At first children may be clumsy about using this newfound ability to pretend and misrepresent themselves, however these early attempts set the stage for a long process of learning to differentiate truth from fiction, the motivation to tell the truth and the savvy to know all the social conventions about when not telling the truth is acceptable (white lies).
 
Children lie – but in adolescence the stakes increase dramatically !

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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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NOL 2BO

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

Email: info@rickharper.ca

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