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The best inheritance  parents can give their children is a few minutes of their time each day.

Children do not develop on their own - they only develop within relationships.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

"Cutting" is a visible sign to the world that you are hurting.

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The “Behavioural” Approach

The behavioural approach to managing children involves the application of learning principles identified by famous psychologists such as Pavlov, Thorndike, Skinner, Wolpe and Bandura. Each one of these individuals and countless others described strategies that increased desired behaviours, decreased undesired behaviours or taught new behaviours. These behaviour pioneers stressed the importance of direct observation and carefully analyzing the nature of the child’s behaviour in terms of “what is the kid trying to achieve?”.

Once the behaviours have been clearly defined and the “function” of the behaviour has been determined it is a relatively small step to determining intervention strategies to change the frequency, rate, intensity or duration of the behaviours.

The central premise of the behaviourists is that individuals repeat behaviours that “work” for them and abandon behaviours that “do not work”. An individual who performs a certain behaviour repeatedly is somehow being reinforced for the behaviour. If this were not so, he would not be repeating the behaviour.

The focus of the behaviourist approach in dealing with behaviour  is to develop responses  to the behaviour in a manner likely to reduce the probability of an inappropriate  behaviour being repeated and likely increasing the probability of an appropriate behaviour being repeated. The advantage of this approach is that it provides parents and teachers with direct applications for the home and classroom settings. In fact the main agent for change will be the people who spend the most time with the child (parents & teachers) rather than the therapist who may only see the child at scheduled appointment times.

 

 

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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

“We were so naive. We thought our son’s poor behaviour was just a phase he was passing through. Thankfully you led us ‘out of the wilderness'”

(N.S. – London)