Today we are going to discuss the value of showing your oppositional defiant disorder child or teenager that you value and respect them. As a parent, you want to show your child or teen that you respect them, value them, and think that they are capable of doing the right thing.

This is important because our children live up to our expectations. This means that if you expect your child to be well behaved and excel, then your child will be more inclined to do so. What I mean by that is if you feel that your child is capable and can do it, then your child will live up to your expectations.

On the other hand, if you believe that there is something wrong with your child, like for example, that he has ODD or ADHD and he is not going to behave because he has that label; then he is going to live up to that expectation also. Our children live up to our expectations.

So you want to be sure that you genuinely feel that way. You should feel that your child is capable of behaving himself and that he is able to do what you ask him to do. You want to be sure that you believe that your child is capable of being a winner and not a loser.

If you as a parent believe that your child is a loser, then your child will believe that about himself. Your child will fulfill your expectations and will perform poorly and become a problem child. On the other hand, if you really truly believe that your child is a good child and is capable of having behavioral problems here and there, but in essence you believe that he is good and capable; then your child will also see that picture of himself and he will come out of these problems and grow up to be successful.

It is really up to you as the parent. You have a lot of control in these areas as a parent. You can control your children through the expectations that you have for them. It will develop a healthy relationship with them.

Today we are going to discuss a very powerful technique which will help you when your ODD child is angry and tensions in the house are very high. This is something that is not just a parenting tip, but it is also useful in a person’s entire life as well.

I first learned this when I was an intern in surgery at the University of Cincinnati and learned this from the senior resident. The idea is that when tensions are high and people are excited, the most important thing that you can do to keep control is to speak very slowly and speak softly.

What this does is it lowers the level of tension in the room. I learned this when I was a resident, but I have also seen several references to this since then. One example was in a letter to his son over 800 years ago. Another example is in the bible from King Solomon in proverbs.

So this is an idea that has been used throughout the ages. It is a well know idea and is very useful. What you, as a parent, can do with this is keep calm by lowering your voice and this will then calm down your excited child.

Speaking slowly and softly during fights and arguments with your children will also lower tension in your home. This technique works well with oppositional defiant disorder children and teens. It works very well and is very effective.

This is Dr. Anthony Kane with the Complete Connection Parenting Program with another parenting tip for your today. If you would like more tips or sign up for our free newsletter, please visit our website at www.ccparenting.com

Today we are going to discuss the importance of being able to redirect your oppositional defiant disorder child’s behavior. Now many times our children do things that we do not like and we want them to stop doing it and tell them to stop doing it.

The problem is that this technique does not work. It does not work because children, especially ODD or ADHD children, need to be told what else to do and not to stop doing what they are doing. Children need to be given a redirection.

For example, if a child is doing something that bothers you and you just tell her to stop doing it she will not know what else to do instead. It would certainly be more effective if your told your child to not do this, but do this instead.

This will help your child to change directions. It will also make it easier for your child to comply. Another great thing it will do is it will also bring down a lot of the tension in the house.

What I recommend parents to do is to have a list of things that your child likes to do, especially if your child is ODD or ADHD. You can either remember this list of things or better yet, write them down in a convenient location. The benefit to writing down what your child likes to do is that it will be a quick reference to help you replace the negative behavior when needed.

Let’s say for example that you are trying to talk on the phone and your defiant child is banging on something near to you. My own kid’s liked to bang on pots when they were very small. If you redirect the child and say don’t bang on the pots, come over here and play with this toy.

This gives them something else to do. It makes it much easier to redirect the child and lets the child change direction very easily. So the idea is that when your defiant child is doing something wrong, give her another choice which she finds equally or more appealing. This will allow you as the parent to choose the behavior of your child.

This way you are not screaming or scolding your ODD child all the time. Instead you, the parent, are redirecting your defiant child to a better behavior. You are giving your child a different direction to go in.

Avoiding battles makes it a lot easier to be a parent. This is one of the ways of doing it. So the idea is to redirect your child and give her something else to do instead of the bad behavior. This is the best way to avoid battles, conflicts, and scolding. Your house will be a much better place to live.

This is Dr. Anthony Kane with the Complete Connection Parenting Program with another parenting tip for your today. If you would like more tips or sign up for our free newsletter, please visit our website at www.ccparenting.com

Today we are going to discuss the idea of showing your oppositional defiant disorder child love. This is actually a mistake that parents make, thinking that they are showing their children love. I will explain what I mean by that.

When our children are very infants and small babies, we do a lot to protect them from harm and from damaging themselves because they just lack understanding. The problem happens when children get older we, as parents, tend to continue protecting our children from the mistakes that they make.

As a result, what happens is our children become sheltered and it can become a problem in that your children will never learn to take responsibility for their actions. The proper way to show that you really love your child is to help them become a healthy, normal, and well functioning teenager and then adult.

Unfortunately, this requires your children to make mistakes and then take responsibility for those mistakes. Your children should learn to suffer the consequences of their mistakes.

We cannot keep sheltering our children as they get older. Our children have to learn to grow up, move on, and take care of themselves. They will not do this if we, as parents, pick up all of their mistakes and protect their actions. It is a mistake that all parents can make.

What you want to do is show your children responsible love. Teach your children that if they do something wrong that they have to pay the consequences.

Mistakes have consequences.

The best way for your child or anyone to learn from something is to make a mistake or do something wrong and feel the pain of the consequences. So this goes for small children as well as older children and teenagers too.

When your child is older, the consequences tend to be more severe. So for example, if your child is stealing, one of the worst things that you can do is to protect them from the police. Do not protect your children from their actions of stealing because they will never learn that stealing has very painful consequences.

On the other hand, if you really love your children and want what is best for them, if they do something very very wrong and you let them face the consequences themselves, they will learn that bad things have bad consequences.

By doing this, your children will learn that punishments are serious and that the world is a serious place. They will learn that if you do not behave yourself, bad things can happen to you.

Now it is counter-intuitive, because we want to protect our children. But sometimes protecting our children too much can be really detrimental for them. So it is a hard lesson that we as parents have to learn. We have to break away from protecting our children and change our whole way of thinking.

We have to let our children suffer their mistakes so that when they get older, they will learn to be much more careful and not make these mistakes, especially when the mistakes have serious consequences.

Because a child who gets into trouble at 15 years old is going to be in a different situation then a child who gets into trouble at 19 years of age. If a parent protects a child at age 15, that parent will protect their child at age 19 too. You, as the parent, do not want that to happen.

This is Dr. Anthony Kane with the Complete Connection Parenting Program with another parenting tip for your today. If you would like more tips or sign up for our free newsletter, please visit our website at www.ccparenting.com

Today we are going to discuss a very interesting technique that will help you reduce the level of anger in your ODD children. I would like to say right now, when you can apply it, it is 100% effective. I will explain to you why that is.

We all know that emotions affect the body.  Meaning a person who is upset or angry has a faster pulse, higher blood pressure, there are physiological changes in the body because of emotions.

What many people do not realize is that it goes the other way too. You can actually control your emotions by changing your body. This very important and very powerful because a lot of us cannot control our emotions very well, but we all have complete control over what our body does.

This is how you can use this idea. What you can do if your child is upset, angry, fighting, or making an angry face, take a pen and give it to your child. Have your child put the pen in his mouth sideways so that he bites down and the pen forces a smile on his face.

When a person is smiling, it is physiologically impossible to continue to be angry. So as long as your child has a pen in his mouth and if he keeps it in long enough, he stops being angry.

Again, it is physiologically impossible to be angry when you are smiling. Smiling will force a person’s emotions to get out of anger and will work every time, providing that you can have your child do it.

This technique was really developed to work best in the car when siblings are fighting and won’t stop. Have both children bite down on pens until the end of the car ride and by that time they should both be laughing and not fighting.

Again, this is a great technique when you can use it. This technique is 100% effective. It shows parents a good principle that you can control the body to change the emotions. This is one example of many to change your child’s body physiologically. Your children will have fun and it will work.

This is Dr. Anthony Kane with the Complete Connection Parenting Program.
For great parenting tips log on to www.ccparenting.com.
Sign up for our free newsletter. At our site, you will learn the one word that will help you win battles with your ODD child or ODD teenager.

Today we are going to discuss how you give recognition to your child to get him to change his behavior. This is a very important idea to understand, that change is very, very hard to do.

What you have to do as a parent, is notice and acknowledge the small gains that your child makes. Encourage her along the path that you want her to go.

So, for example, let’s say your oppositional defiant disorder child has trouble sitting at the dinner table. If you notice that she sits a little bit, then you should acknowledge that and praise her for it.

Recognize the small accomplishments with your children because change doesn’t happen all at once, it happens gradually.

What you do when you notice your child’s accomplishments, is you give your child the encouragement to go further and move forward with those accomplishments. It is very important for your children to feel like they are moving forward and making gains in a positive direction.

It is important for your children to feel like they are earning your appreciation. This is what your children thrive upon. They thrive on your attention and the fact you notice them and acknowledge them. They need to feel that they are special to you.

So, when your defiant child does something that you want, even though it is not the whole of what you want, as long as it is in the right direction, you should praise it, notice it, and make your child feel good about it. This will encourage them to keep on going.

Eventually you will get the behavior you are looking for in your ODD or ADHD child or teenager. It is a very important concept. Make sure that you give your children lots of warmth and praise.

This is Dr. Anthony Kane with the Complete Connection Parenting Program.
For great parenting tips log on to www.ccparenting.com.
Sign up for our free newsletter.

Today we are going to discuss the number one reason why children, and even teenagers, do not listen to or follow directions. It is very common, so common, especially with ODD, ADHD, and kids with other learning disabilities, to not listen to us as parents. The real reason why they don’t listen to us is because they don’t understand what we are telling them. They do not understand the instructions they are being given.

It is very common with young children because young children have a small attention span. We forget that and give too complicated of instructions to them. Older children also may not follow what you are telling them.

So, if you are having trouble with your child not listening to you, misbehaving, not following instructions, and not doing what you asked; the number one reason is that they don’t understand what you are telling them. So the first thing that you have to do before anything else happens is make sure that your instructions are clear. Be sure that your oppositional defiant disorder child understands exactly what you are saying. One of the best ways of doing that is to have him or her repeat back to you what you said.

Have them say what they are supposed to be doing. Once they say it back to you, you will know they understood.

Again, this is a very common problem and parents do not realize that their odd adhd children don’t understand and that this is why they are misbehaving. I have seen it time and time again with my own children and with older children also. So you have to be very aware that this is a major problem. This probably really shouldn’t be a problem, because it is not your child’s fault. Your odd or adhd child just does not understand.

You as the parent can take down many of the problems in your house by just making sure that your child understands. Just make sure that the instructions are clear and that your child repeats back the instructions.

This is Dr. Anthony Kane with the Complete Connection Parenting Program.
For great parenting tips log on to www.ccparenting.com.
Sign up for our free newsletter.

Today we are going to discuss the idea of difficult conversations with your child; meaning, correcting  your child’s  behavior.

Now we all hate to be told that we are doing something wrong. Nobody likes it and your child is no different. Your child is going to hate it. It is going to bother him and it is going to be hard to approach him.

What I am going to give you today is a technique that will help you ease the tension so that he can actually get the message of what you are talking about. The basic idea is this, the first thing you should do before you get involved in a difficult conversation about a behavior problem that needs to be addressed, is give your child some recognition, praise, and a shot of self-esteem.

So for example, let’s say that you want to talk about your son’s behavior with his younger brother. You can first say, “You know, Bobby, you have really been helping out around the house lately, and I really appreciate it and am really proud of you for that and let’s talk about your younger brother, what can we do to make things better with you and him?”

Now, I did two things there. First of all, I acknowledged that he is doing something right, noticed it, appreciated it, and gave him thanks for it. Second, I used the word “and” to connect it to the problem/topic that I want to get to next.

Now, “and” is a very important word. We have used it many times before, “and” suggests a connection. If you use “but”, it negates what we said before, so if I said Bobby you have been great around the house, but your brother is a problem; this negates the fact that Bobby is great around the house.

When you use “and” it eases the transition, so what happens is your child gets the warm self esteem and the appreciation. Now his tension is much lower going into a topic that he feels uncomfortable talking about.

It is a very important idea to use this type of technique because it will make the conversation go a lot smoother and be much more productive. Also this works particularly well with ODD kids.  So try it out, use it, and let us know it works for you.

This is Dr. Anthony Kane with the Complete Connection Parenting Program.

For great parenting tips log on to www.ccparenting.com.

Sign up for our free newsletter.

Today we are going to discuss a very important thing we must do with our children and that is show them respect.

Children need to feel our respect.

They need to know we respect them as people. We, as parents, should respect our children as people. Even though they are children, they are also still human beings. They have the need and desire to be respected.

There are two reasons that it is very important that we, as parents, show them respect.

First of all, it is important for a child to learn to respect others. Children do this by seeing us do it with them. But it is also important that our children respect us.

Many, many times parents tell me they do not have respect for their children or teens. Very often the reason is because they do not show their children or teens respect.

When you show respect to another human being, he or she is almost compelled to return that respect to you. They show you respect also in high regard.

This a very important point to remember.

So if you are having trouble respecting your child, if you show your child respect and show that you value him as a person, he will treat you in kind. This will also improve your relationship together.

Your child will also feel better about themselves. They will feel better about you, and this also improves the relationship.

In closing, it is very important that you show your child respect.

This is Dr. Anthony Kane with the Complete Connection Parenting Program.

For great parenting tips log on to www.ccparenting.com.

Sign up for our free newsletter.

Find the ONE WORD that will show you how to control and take charge of any argument you have with your child or teenager.

Today we are going to discuss the importance of recognizing your child’s accomplishments.

What I mean by this is following. Improving behavior is a long process involving many, many steps.

It is very important that you recognize and pay attention to what your child does. You, as the parent, need to recognize improvements and give credit for them. You should acknowledge your child’s improvements and behavior.

This is a great way to encourage your child. Make your child realize that you are paying attention to him. Be certain that your child know that you appreciate his accomplishments. You can even praise your child for his accomplishments.

So for example, maybe your child has a problem with eating at the dinner table, but he is improving his behavior. Maybe he is sitting better. You should acknowledge this better behavior and say, “Today you sat very well at the table. I’m very proud of you. I’m really glad you did this today.”

When you acknowledge your child’s behavioral accomplishments many things occur. What happens is that you encourage him to go further. You encourage him and in turn it also builds your relationship with your child.

One thing that I always stress, and it is very important, you should compliment your child as much as possible. A general rule of thumb is to give your child at least four or five positive statements for every one criticism that you have given.

This will help you to show your child your affection. It will make your child feel better. It will encourage him along to the proper path. Most important, it will help him grow up to be a better child, a better teen, and a better adult.

Just remember, this is a process of growing up.  Your child will not be perfect right away.  He will not correct his behavior right away.  But if you acknowledge your child’s accomplishments and you encourage him along the path, he will eventually get there.