Dealing With Kids’ Anger Effectively

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Many parents have actually admitted defeat when they are confronted with a screaming child or when kids’ anger is just out of control. We are in the screaming, yelling and explosive anger which seems impossible to deal with. About 50% of parents have admitted that they have lost control and started shouting back and have lost their cool. 

Parents cannot help reacting whether they are being abused, threatened or insulted. How do you deal with kids’ anger effectively and how do you keep control? Here are some ideas which have worked for many parents in this situation.

1. De-escalate the situation. That means not reacting at all although that can be really difficult.
2. If you can, just take time out yourself and say that you cannot handle this right now. This is the truth. You want to be calmer and confront the problem later.
3. You will not give in to the child’s demands. This establishes a dangerous precedent especially if the meltdown is about a request for an object or permission to do something. This could teach the child that this sort of reaction gets results!
4. Children imitate behavior so a calm reaction each and every time will eventually start producing results.
5. Talk later to the child or teen about what happened.
6. Ask what happened and does he know the cause
7. Suggest other ways of reacting when anger and frustration build up and are explosive. Give examples from your own life and situation.
8. Mention voluntary time out- you yourself may have used this. It is perfectly acceptable if your child wants to distance himself from the scene of the crime, so to speak.

After the whole incident is over, you will have to deal out some consequences of there was damage to the home or another sibling was hurt in the episode. There is no need at all to worry about consequences if a child was just giving vent to his frustration and rage. Just talk about the ways we can deal with that the next time.

Dealing with kids’anger is never easy. If you follow some of the suggestions above, it will help to keep you on track.  If you feel you need more help, look at the programs recommended in this blog.

Learning The Truth About Problems With Psychostimulants.

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Ask any medical authority or pediatric association about the limitations and side effects of stimulants for ADHD and they will all agree that they are not the complete answer to the ADHD problem. The reality, though, is very different. Doctors are still prescribing these stimulants such as Ritalin and Adderall as if they were the only answer to the problem. In effect, they are really only a very partial answer and they should be used sparingly, if at all.

The problems with psychostimulants are many and varied. It is estimated that about 30% of children will be unable to tolerate the side effects. These include :-

• weight loss due to loss of appetite
• stunted growth
• heart problems
• sleep challenges
• mood swings
• irritability

As these medications are stimulants, the whole nervous system, heart and brain are all very artificially stimulated and the effects are sometimes very far reaching. It is not surprising really but the strange thing is that the paradoxical effect they have on the child’s attention span and hyperactivity.

Although they are stimulating the brain, the effects are a calming down and hyperactivity is certainly less noticeable.  The alarming fact is that they may alleviate the effects of this mental condition but they never really cure or even treat it in any permanent way. The other factor is that their effects over the long term on a child’s brain are simply unknown. There is also another disturbing fact in that the effects of the drugs tend to wear off after three years.

It is at this point that many parents realize that the really effective treatment has escaped them or that they were not told. The answer to all their problems with psychostimulants can be solved by simply using behavior modification, green time and exercise plus watching diet carefully. More and more research is now pointing to the fact that ADHD alternative therapy such as ADHD homeopathic remedies are just so much safer, more effective and create no problems at all.

Thr Truth About ADHD Medication

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A recent report in an Irish newspaper pointed up parents’ worries about ADHD medication and how widespread it was.  That worry is echoed by parents elsewhere such as the UK, America and Australia.

Given the small population of Ireland, less than 4 million, the figures for stimulant medication such as Ritalin is alarming in that it accounts for more than 40,000 prescriptions. Costs for the State in providing this type of medication on the National Health Service is an astonishing £3 million.   

About a third of all the cases seen in just one month at the CAMHS (child and adolescent mental health services) were connected with ADHD.

Parents are worried about the fact that there is far too much reliance on these drugs and that natural ADHD remedies are neither sought out nor are they given much thought.

The fact is that there is far too little emphasis given to a comprehensive type of treatment and that the ADHD alternative therapy is often scorned either out of ignorance or sheer prejudice. This fact is not helped by the false personas who stalk the social networking sites claiming that the medicines are perfectly safe and that there is no need to worry about the side effects. These people are in the pay of the pharmaceutical companies and they have obviously not underestimated the power of social networking.

The fact is that ADHD natural remedies such as herbal remedies and homeopathic remedies have had no powerful lobbies supporting them and that is why they are shoved into the background.

As regards homeopathic remedies,the fact is that there are no side effects at all and that no health risks have ever been documented, let alone any reports of deaths!

Once parents can establish a multipronged approach works best, then they are definitely on the right  track. Once the proper emphasis has been given to and that parenting skills or behavior modification, plus an ADHD friendly home, green time and diet, then there is a much better chance of successful treatment.

Why not find out more how ADHD natural remedies can work for your child and why more and more parents are turning to them now.

Spoiled Children – Where Do YOU Draw The Line ?

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Too often, it seems, parents are far too indulgent with their children. I do not just mean how many presents and treats they buy them. I am referring here to the overuse of praise for every little thing they do which of course will result in spoiled children. If these rewards and prizes are not linked at all to real merit, well, they are not much use.  This is not the way to bring up responsible well adjusted adults for the real world out there!

But we have to balance that with being over critical and destroying our children’s sense of confidence and self esteem. If we spoil them they are not prepared or equipped with the right life skills.  If we are too critical and severe, we may ruin their self confidence. It seems that we have to walk the tightrope here and try to find the right balance- no pun intended!

We have to be really careful about reinforcing any messages which could lead to our kids getting too hung up about a negative self image and being too critical of how they look, how confident they feel and whether they feel successful or not.

There are other parents who just praise their kids so much that they grow up feeling as if thy own the world. They have an exaggerated sense of their own abilities and they may well be in for a downfall.  This is another aspect of spoiled children which is often overlooked.

The secret of positive parenting when dealing with potentially spoiled children is to keep a realistic perspective. The best way they can do that is to stop their children trying out tactics and new behaviors just to get what they want. These behaviors, tricks or tactics or whatever you want to call them need to be redirected. A consultant child psychologist devised a program to help you do just that so that spoiled children will never again be a problem in your family.

Dealing With An Angry Teenager

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Usually, an angry teenager sets up a barrier by displaying negative behaviors which makes it very hard to know what to do.  The defiance, aggression and hostility plus the angry outbursts and the slamming of doors makes you wonder whether your home will ever be a quiet peaceful one again.
If we never get round to asking our angry teenager just what is the problem, we are never going to make the progress we  need to make. We have to find out and the best way to do is to TALK to them rather than trying to figure out by spying on them

There may be issues over the actual house rules and there may be peer pressure too to rebel against these and go with the crowd.

Here are some quick guidelines :-

1.      Make sure you are giving support and that your comments are never seen as criticism of his or her lifestyle/choice of friends and so on.

2.      Talk about how you yourself react to anger/frustration/dislike and boredom and how you control your anger.

3.      Talk about limits and the law. Talk about issues of safety and health.

4.      Talk about how physical aggression/hostility and defiance rarely works in the adult world.

5.      Discuss how resorting to alcohol and drugs may give temporary relief but brings a whole host of other problems and is neither a valid nor permanent solution.

6.      We can discuss how using time management and how taking time out and counting to ten are all ways that we can control our anger.

7.      Discuss ways of physically getting rid of the anger without doing damage to people or property. Sport and physical exercise are great ways and enhance good mood as well.

These are just a few of the techniques I learnt from a behavior modification program which was a great help in dealing with behavior problems in my angry teenager. There are a lot more which deal with dealing with defiance, aggressiveness and also how to talk to your teen and get through to him when there seems to be an unbreakable wall.

Children Lying ?- Strategies For Coping With This

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 We all lie and we do it sometimes without thinking.We are determined not to go to that boring dinner party so we tell a lie that we have something else on! It happens all the time and we do it in front of our kids too. The major parenting experts tell us that a fib here or there will not harm anybody.

But hold on a sec ! What if your child is lying all the time and it is becoming pathological?  What if you cannot trust him or her to tell you what happened at school or other issues which have to do with health and safety and what he is doing when you are not at home ?

We can dish out consequences. But first we have to chat to him about mutual trust and tell him that of we cannot trust each other to tell the truth, then mistrust builds up on both sides.  We can give examples.

This is the first of a few strategies we can adopt when we have to deal with children lying. I have written an article on this as well.

READ THE ARTICLE HERE