Empowering Parents caught up with Peggy Moss, a nationally known expert on bullying and a tireless advocate for the prevention of hate violence, to discuss bullying and what parents can do when they suspect their child is being bullied. And what they can do—together—to try to stop it. Q. Are name-calling and teasing just part of... Read more »
What kid doesn’t love it when Mom or Dad spends money on them? When you can afford it, buying things for your children is fun. But there’s a point where we buy things for our kids for the wrong reasons: to win their allegiance or simply to get them to stop screaming. Where is... Read more »
The parents I've worked with often have ineffective ways of responding to and managing their child's meltdowns. They either go to one extreme and yell, threaten, restrain, or even spank the child, or they go to the other extreme and give in. In both cases, the parent may stop the meltdown, but they haven't taught... Read more »
For the parents of a child with ADHD, everyday tasks turn into battles—from getting the child out the door in the morning to getting him to bed at night. My son was diagnosed with ADHD at age 6, so I remember what it was like to have a daily tug of war with an attention... Read more »
Parents who don’t have effective parenting skills will often use aggression as a substitute. This is especially common with parents who don’t have good relationships or effective coping skills and use aggression to compensate for a whole range of things. Ultimately, it can lead to aggression with their kids. When you use aggression as a parenting... Read more »
There's a difference between being considerate of your child and tiptoeing around them. We all want to be considerate of our children. If there are things that our children have to face in life that are upsetting to them, then we want to be considerate in terms of the intensity and frequency of how often... Read more »
For many children, behavior problems are not universal; they’re targeted. Targeted at dad, at mom, at the stepmother, at the fiancé, at a sibling. The following two case studies reveal how normally charming and compliant children can become defiant or even abusive with one person in the family. James Lehman examines why this happens and... Read more »
Over the years, many parents have asked me why their kids aren't motivated and what they can do about it. How can you get your child to be more motivated? To do better in school? To even go to school? The important thing to remember is this: your child is motivated. They’re just motivated to... Read more »
The alarm goes off and the morning battle begins: you knock on your child’s bedroom door to wake him, but you have to go back time and again to make sure he’s actually up, your voice rising with each “wake-up call.” As the minutes tick by and he still hasn’t gotten out of bed, you... Read more »
If you’re having trouble giving effective consequences to your teen, know that you are not alone. Many parents tell me that nothing seems to work and that coming up with the right thing for their child can seem like an impossible task. If you’re the parent of an adolescent, you may have grounded your child, taken... Read more »