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Setting limits teaches your children valuable skills they will use the rest of their lives. One day, they will report to a job where their ability to follow rules will dictate their success.

Hurt people hurt people.

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

Wouldn't it be nice if children would simply listen and learn.

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

If you are headed in the wrong direction as a parent - you are allowed to make a U-turn.

Some hope their children will be like sponges soaking up the truth and wisdom imparted by their parents. However appealing this philosophy might be, it seldom seems to catch on with their children.

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.

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.

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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

“Our psychiatrist recommended Rick to help us sort out behaviour management issues for our autistic son. He was an invaluable help.”

(C.C. – Sarnia)