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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.

Children mimic well. They catch what they see better than they follow what they hear.

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

The mistake that Sharon and I both made is we never set any boundaries.  (Ozzy Osbourne)

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.

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

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

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

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

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The Problem with ADD/ADHD Assessments

The medical community uses the term “diagnosis drives treatment”.  This means that a correct diagnosis must be made before a treatment is prescribed. This is quite straight forward with many medical problems (examples – throat infections, cancer, heart attacks, broken bones, abscess tooth, etc) as there are diagnostic tests that can definitively identify the problem (examples – blood tests, bacterial cultures, MRI, biopsies, X rays, etc).

The problem diagnosing  ADD/ADHD (and many other problems in the brain) is that there are no “hard” biological markers that can be used to definitively diagnose it. The diagnosis is made by interpreting the observations of the child’s parents and teachers. The only professionals that are legally allowed to diagnose ADD/ADHD  are medical doctors and some psychologists. These professions sometimes  observe the child directly but more often than not they use the observations of others in making a diagnosis. This admittedly is a poor way to diagnose a problem and subsequently decide on a treatment plan but it is the usual way it is done.

My next posting will outline the preferred assessment procedures for ADD/ADHD.

“What parents need most are ideas because with ideas we get options.”

Rick Harper  has been providing ideas to parents for over 40 years.

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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)