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

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.

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

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

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

Children fare better when expectations on them are clear and firm.

Hurt people hurt people.

You cannot reason with someone who is being unreasonable.

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

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

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The Terror of Night Terrors

 

 

Few things are more terrifying for a parent than the first time their child has a night terror. Night terrors are different than bad dreams or nightmares.

Bad dreams and nightmares happen to virtually everybody and occur during the REM sleep phase (rapid eye movement). Researchers have discovered that even fetuses have dreams – including “bad” ones. Bad dreams may cause facial grimaces, moving, thrashing about and may result in being wakened up. If a child does wake up, he will usually fall back to sleep quickly but may need to be comforted by mom or dad first. He may remember parts of the dream in the morning.

Night terrors occur in about 10% of children and typically occur during the non-REM sleep phase in the first few hours of sleep. The usual ages of children experiencing night terrors is 3 to 12 years but a very small percentage may experience them into adulthood.

During the terror, a child’s eyes may be wide open but he is not awake. He may cry, scream, hyperventalate, sit up or even get out of bed. He may push the parent away, fight against being comforted and act in very strange ways. The terror typically lasts only a few minutes but can go on for as long as 30 minutes.

The child will return to a peaceful sleep once the episode passes and will usually have no recollection of the incident in the morning.

Night terrors are truly terrifying for the parent but the child suffers absolutely no ill effect and rarely needs the pediatrician to become involved.

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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 wish we had found Rick 2 years ago. We could have saved ourselves and our son a lot of trouble.”

(T.T. – Byron)