Complete Connection Parenting Community Blog

Today we are going to discuss what happens when your significant other or your ex-spouse undermines your discipline plans and your discipline programs. This is a very common problem, because as you know in our society today we have a tremendously high divorce rate, there is a lot of single parenting, and, generally speaking, parents who got divorced don’t really get along so well and don’t see the things the same way. So, you have a lot of situations and a lot of questions about parents who have tried to implement discipline program and their ex-husband/ex-wife undermines them.

So, let me give you a scenario and show you how to handle it. Let’s say, for example, your son Bob who is 10 years old is not behaving so well, and he wants to get a DVD set or an Xbox.

You say, “Look, Bob, you are not behaving well. You are not listening at school. You are not going to school. You are fighting and arguing at home. I will not get you an Xbox until I see a real change in your behavior.”

Then your ex-husband goes ahead and buys him an Xbox, undermining everything you’ve set up. How do you handle that?

Well, the first thing you do is you don’t complain to your son about what your ex-husband did.

“I can’t believe he did that! I set the rule, and he undermined me”.

You don’t complain. Once you complain about what the other side has done, you undermine your effectiveness and you show that you are powerless.

The best way to handle this is this is by saying something like this.

“You know, Bob, I’m really glad your father bought you this, and it’s good that you have it. Of course, you can’t use here, in our house, until I see that you get up for school on time, or I see that you help with the laundry, or I see you do your homework,” or whatever criteria you set up originally.

The one thing you want to do is to show your child that you can hold your ground. When you hold your ground, it shows that you have the power, and you are the parent, and you are in charge, which is what you must always maintain.

One more thing to remember: You are not your child’s friends; you are your child’s parent. Children have friends, and children have parents. You cannot be both. So, you want to hold your ground, you want to show that you are effective and that you have your power. You can be happy that the child got the thing he wanted, but he just can’t use it here until he does what you said.

Dealing with conflicts is an essential tool you need to get by in life. But how do you deal with conflicts your child has at school with his teachers?

We have all been in school and we all know that not every teacher out there is the best person in the world. They don’t all handle problems well. Some even have some personality problems. If your child is a difficult child, like a child with ODD, or ADHD, or some other problem, or just a normal active child, he is most likely going to have conflicts with teachers during his career in school.

So, how do you as a parent handle this?

First of all, do not complain to your child about the teacher. Do not get into a discussion about how bad or wrong the teacher is, or how the teacher mishandled the problem.

By doing that, you cause two things to happen. First of all, you undermine the teacher’s authority, and that is a big mistake. Secondly, you validate your child’s inappropriate behavior, and that is definitely not the right thing to do.

What you should do is to talk to the teacher privately about the problem. Or, if necessary, go to the principal privately and talk to him about the problem. I admit that there have been times that I’ve had to go and switch my child from one class to another, because there was a personality conflict that was not good for the child. But all things considered, you still do not want to invalidate the authority of the teacher in front of the child.

Another reason why you don’t want to do this is that throughout your child’s life he is going to run into people who are difficult, who have their own personal problems, who do not handle situations well and act and react inappropriately. Many of these difficult people could be people who hold positions of power.  It could be a clerk at the Motor Vehicle Department, someone in the Passport Office or a bank. They are people who your child will need services from and defiance at this point will not get him what he wants.  He will have to deal with them whether he likes it or not. 

He cannot always run away from problems. So, you should use this opportunity to teach your child how to handle the situation.  Teach him how to talk to teacher appropriately, how to avoid conflicts, how to obey difficult situations and difficult requests, and how to basically get through the year however possible.

Again, there may be times where you will just have to get the child out and get him to a better situation. But you should try to use this opportunity first of all, to teach your child to handle these difficult situations.

You do not want to undermine the authority, the respect for the teacher, because the child must needs to know how respect authority figures, even when the person filling the position doesn’t deserve respect.

You do not want to undermine a teacher in any way, and at the same time, you do not want to validate your child’s bad behavior.

Here’s a letter I received from a parent that I have been in contact with and have advised for some time. I have advised many parents to work on building a relationship with younger children by sitting and playing with them for a certain amount of time every day. Here is what he wrote:

“I have just been doing the twenty minute play sessions that you advised with my four year old son, and I am wondering what is the best way to end the sessions? He got very upset when the session was over. He runs into his room and slams the door and says things like “You can’t play with me anymore - ever again!” I hope he realizes once these sessions are going on without finishing that it will not be much of a problem. Is this usually the case? I would love to have your feedback.”

The first thing I would say is that this is a great result. This is exactly what you are looking for. This means that when you start giving your child more attention and it is something he has been missing, he is going to react like this child when the time is over.

When it is over your child is going to complain because in his mind he is afraid that it will not happen again. When your child reacts like this it means you have found out what the child has been lacking.

What this mother discovered in the twenty minute play sessions was that her child was lacking the warm and non-critical attention from his mother. That was what the child really needed.

When the session was over, the child was so afraid it was not going to happen again. Reacting to this, her child responded by saying “I’m not going to play with you any more.”

He was basically rejecting her before she rejected him. This type of response is a wonderful sign that shows you are on the right track.

I encouraged this parent a lot. And I encourage other parents to use this and similar methods to understand their child’s needs. I hope that you will find exactly what their child’s needs are, and that as a result you can give your child the warmth and love he needs. This is the ideal way to build a better relationship with your child and have a wonderful life together.

Oppositional Defiant Disorder Treatment

There are several aspects to look into when treating Oppositional Defiant Disorder.  I will be focusing on the actual difficult defiant behavior and what you should do with your child.

We have already discussed the medical treatment in other places.  Just to summarize again, if your child has another disorder such as ADHD or bipolar disorder, the first line of treatment is to treat the other disorder and see how the behavior improves.  In many cases, the behavior will improve.

There are a lot of programs available these days for ODD. A lot of people, private therapists who treat ODD and I want to give you some criteria of what you should be looking for in a program.  Number one, you should make sure that whatever program you enroll in for your child is stresses treatment of ODD specifically.

There are a lot of parenting programs out there that are general parenting programs, but they do not specifically address ODD behavior.  And, as anyone who has a child with ODD knows, these children do not respond as other children respond.  They are much more defiant. They are much more difficult.  In many cases whereas other children respond to negative reinforcement or consequences, these children would prefer to take the punishment.

If you do not know how to handle your child correctly, you will make things worse.  You want to make sure the program you are enrolled in is specific for Oppositional Defiant Disorder.

The second thing you are looking for is that it should be geared to the appropriate age.  There are basically two main stages of child development.  One being from 2-11 and the other from 12 and teenagers.  These are not at all similar in terms of behavior.

A program that is designed for 2-12 year olds will not work on teenagers, and a program for teenagers should not be used for 2-12 year olds.  You are looking for a program that is specific to your child’s age.  There are programs out there that lump everyone together and say do this without regard to how old the child is.  This will produce mixed results sometimes, but it is still  not what you are looking for.   You want to have the best thing for your child.

The third and most interesting criteria of what I found, was a new research study from a group in Washington State that showed that a good home study parenting program - that means one that has been tried and tested - is just as effective as working privately with a private therapist.

What that means is that you can actually enroll in an online program like the programs we have or someone else has and you will get just as good results as if you go to the top psychology clinics in the country.  You will get just as good results without waiting hours to get an appointment or paying thousands of dollars, and can get proper training in your spare time when it is comfortable for you.  This is an important point to be aware of .  You do not have to go to the local specialist or the best specialist in the world.  A good solid, well proven parenting training program will help you with your child’s behavior.

It is important that you use a proven program.  For example, our programs are very good and we have tested them throughout the world.  We have people in every continent, except maybe Antarctica, who have been going through the programs.  They have gone through the programs in multiple languages and they are very successful.

Many parenting programs that are available online can not say the same thing.  What I would suggest you do is to look into a home study parenting program first, again, making sure it is designed specifically for Oppositional Defiant Disorder and it is age specific.  Do not get a one size fits all program.

The main focus is to do something for these children because you will find that these ODD children are very difficult to raise.  Nevertheless, it is your job to raise them.  They are your children and you have to do what is best for them.

This is Dr. Anthony Kane from the Complete Connection Parenting Program.  For more parenting tips like this, please come to our website at http://ccparenting.com and sign up for a our free Parenting e-Letter.

A common mistake that parents of ODD children make is what we’ll label the “Appeal to Reason” method. What that means basically is that you appeal to the child to be reasonable. The example that follows will help understand why this method is not effective.

Let’s say for example you have a 13 year-old child named Brad. Brad happens to like orange juice and at the breakfast table, he fills his cup to the top and spills the orange juice over. Now, you don’t like that. It’s a wasteful thing, and it bothers you.

Most likely you’ll say, “Look Brad, you can have more. Just don’t fill the cup to the top so it won’t spill.” Now what was Brad thinking?

Well, maybe he likes the feeling of abundance - of having a full cup of orange juice! Maybe he was thinking that if he doesn’t take it all now, he won’t get later. Maybe he was thinking that he wants to fill the cup up and get as much as he can. He most probably wasn’t thinking how he wants to bother you.

So, what have you done here? What you’ve done is taught your son, Brad, the 13-year-old child, that he can get on your nerves by filling his cup to the top and consequently spilling the orange juice. That bothers you. So, what’s going to happen?

For most children, probably, that would be enough. They won’t do it again, or they’ll forget and do it from time to time. But Brad is an ODD child, a defiant child, and they work a little differently. At one point, Brad will remember when he was 8 years old. He’ll remember that you refused to give him eight pieces of cake to celebrate his eighth birthday, and that will bother him now. So what’s he going do?

He’ll say, “Mom, please pass the orange juice.” He will then fill his cup and that’s when he’s going to get back at you. Because what happened was, it didn’t bother you now, but now he knows that you taught him it bothers you. And for ODD children, that’s ammunition for them.

It is usually not a bad approach to reason with children. Try and see if it works. But, if you find that you tried to appeal to your child to be reasonable and your child still responds by doing it anyway, it’s because you gave him fuel to get back at you. ODD children will use revenge. This is another parenting mistake that parents make commonly, and you should beware of the possibility with your child.

This is Dr. Anthony Kane again from the Complete Connection Parenting Program. If you’d like more parenting tips, please go to our Website at http://ccparenting.com and sign up for our free Parenting e-Letter.