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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.

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

Criticism is not a motivator.

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

Removing a child from a traumatic environment does not remove the trauma from the child's memory.

"Unexpressed feeling never die. They are buried alive and come back later in ugly ways." (Stephen Covey)

Adolescence can be the cruelest place on earth. It can really be heartless.  ( Tori Amos)

"Moody" and "unpredictable" are adjectives parents will often use when referring to their teenagers.

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.

There has been an explosion in the prescribing of medication for very young children, particularly preschool and kindergarten boys (Juli Zito , Univ. of Maryland)

Learn more.

FASD – Late Adolescence (17 – 22)

The main goals :

  1. move out of home
  2. establish his own life
  3. learn to cope with societal rules – increase personal expectation with diminishing parental support (lots of teens without FASD have trouble with this)

Trouble Areas:

  1. undereducated
  2. poor money management
  3. loneliness
  4. lack of boundaries
  5. poor judgement

He may lack the emotional and / or the educational maturity to embark on an independent life but he still has the internal and societal programming that makes him want to do it.

GUIDELINES FOR PARENTS

Your late adolescent meeds a combination of:

  • support
  • encouragement
  • patience
  • letting go

It may be best to try to ease your young person into independence by having him board with someone or home share with a responsible adult or convert the garage to a granny flat or have him move into a group home.

This is the stage of life when some individuals begin families of their own. A person with FASD usually requires an enormous amount of support

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Workshops

+ Behaviour Management (now available online)

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

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+ Lick Your Kids

  “Lick Your Kids” (figuratively not literally) (2 hours) First […]

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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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+ Taming a Toddler

Many parents wonder what hit them when their sweet little baby turns into an unreasonable toddler – ideas for dealing with mealtime, bedtime, temper tanturms, toilet training, noncompliance, etc.

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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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Parents' Comments

“I am no longer overwhelmed with a child who has unending discipline and behaviour problems.”

(P.S. – London)