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

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

"To be a man, a boy must see a man."  (J.R. Moehringer)

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

Criticism is not a motivator.

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.

The quickest way to change your child’s behaviour is to first change your own.

Being a parent of a teenager can cure a person of narcissism.

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

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

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Contributing Factors to Teen Depression

Contributing Factors to Depression
1. Genes                – there is a genetic component
                                – most children of depressed parents do not become depressed but there is an increased risk
                                                                         
2. Brain chemicals – it is believed that serotonin & norepinephrine are involved
 
3. Kindling – once brain gets used to thinking in    depressed ways it becomes progressively easier to slip into this pattern
 
4. Life Stress       – stress becomes too great
                                – perceived as inescapable
 
5. Learned Helplessness – interferes with desire to help    oneself
 
6. Past experiences – relevant to the extent that it affects  current thinking, feelings, & behaviours
 
7. Hormones – puberty, birth control pills
 
8. Lack of sunlight – SAD 

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Workshops

+ Behaviour Management (now available online)

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

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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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+ A Guided Tour of ADHD (now available online)

This workshop will present the facts, myths, misconceptions, controversy and […]

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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)