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

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

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 you (parents) tend to overreact to your child's misbehaviour - your child learns that he can't trust you. Mom, Dad, stay regulated!

"Rules without relationship leads to rebellion" (Josh McDowell)

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

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

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

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

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

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Types of Temper Tantrums

There are 2 types of tantrums:

  1. manipulative (child is trying to get his own way – conscious, planned, controlled)
  2. temperamental (child can’t help it – he is truly “out of control”)

Both types can look the same and one form can lead into another. A temperamental tantrum acquires a manipulative quality when the child comes to understand the value of what he’s is doing.

Guidelines to Help Distinguish the Two Types

  • the manipulative tantrum is typically less intense
  • the manipulative tantrum is clearly the result of the child not getting something he wants
  • the motive is obvious for manipulative tantrums – you don’t need to look very hard to find it
  • the temperament tantrum relates to an underlying temperamental issue
  • you typically feel sorry for a child having a temperamental tantrum because “he can’t help it”
  • a manipulative tantrum feels like he’s trying to get his own way

Next post – handling a “manipulative” tantrum.

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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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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)