Parenting Difficult Children - Finding the Proper Program

Today we are going to discuss you - you the parent.
 Many parents who have difficult children feel that they are bad parents.   This is not really fair and I will explain why. Some children are difficult to raise, they have difficult natures, difficult tendencies and no matter how good of a parent you are, these children are going to cause you problems and are going to be difficult to raise.
  Other children are quite easy to raise and have very simple complacent natures.

 What happens is that people who have a difficult child with oppositional defiant disorder, ADHD, or some other difficult behavior problems or learning disorders, is going to feel like they are ineffective parents.

 That is really not fair.  I will give you an example. My three children. The oldest one is oppositional defiant disorder, ADHD, and is a very difficult child. Always has been and still is.

 The second child is more of the whimsical ADHD type and also to a certain point his development was very oppositional.

 My third child was very easy. These children came to the world with these particular natures - the fact that I have two difficult children and an easy child has nothing to do with my parenting skills or me as a parent.
 This is the child I am working with - you must remember you can be a very good parent and still have difficult children.  You can be a good parent but what is more important is to be an effective parent.  If you have a difficult, defiant, ADHD, or ODD child, what you must do is develop your parenting skills.
 There are very simple and effective ways of doing this. The most effective way is to enroll in a parenting program.  Recent studies have shown that home study parenting programs are equally as effective and much cheaper and more convenient for parents than going to a psychologist or parent training group.

 It is much more effective and economical for you.
Also, you can do it at your own pace.
  There are a lot of programs like this online and there are a lot of home study programs. I suggest you look into two things when you are looking for a program.
You want a program that focuses on the parent child relationship, not discipline and discipline techniques. As your child gets older, if you discipline your child, he is eventually going to rebel against your authority.

 You do not want that to happen.
 The much more effective long term way to develop your relationship with your child is to get the behavior through warmth, love, and the natural parenting bond connection you have with your child.

 That is the most effective way of developing a good behavioral approach to your child.
  The other item I want to stress is that different programs focus on different ages.

 Children change in their nature around the time of puberty. You want to be sure to get a program that focuses on age 2-11, if your child is in that age-group; and age 12 and older, if your child is in that age-group.

 You do not want to get a program that groups everyone together because it will not be as effective for you and it is not what you are looking for in a good, effective program.