Bill Corbett

Our jobs demanded long hours. Highway construction stretched our commute. Yard work never seemed to end. Weekends felt more exhausting than restorative. And inside our home, our three school-aged and preteen children seemed to be fighting more and cooperating less. Get the book that provides many answers. When we compared notes with other parents in casual conversations, we realized we weren’t unusual. We were normal. Busy. Stressed. Doing our best. But while I couldn’t do much about corporate deadlines or growing grass, I became increasingly focused on one question: How could I become a better father? I wanted our children to get along better. I wanted more cooperation. I wanted our home to feel less reactive and more connected. I quickly realized that yelling and punitive discipline weren’t producing the results I hoped for. In fact, they seemed to be making things worse. And I knew something else with absolute clarity: I did not want to repeat the patterns I had grown up with. My fa...

Practical Tools for Raising Cooperative and Independent Kid s https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H5Q2S84N What if the secret to better behavior wasn't more punishment, more lectures, or more frustration? If you've been reading and enjoying this blog, then you'll love the new book. What if raising cooperative, responsible, and independent children came down to having the right tools? In Love, Limits & Lessons: The Parent Toolbox , parenting educator and author Bill Corbett shares a practical collection of proven strategies designed to reduce power struggles, strengthen parent-child relationships, and help children develop the life skills they need to thrive. Drawing on decades of experience working with parents, teachers, and families, Corbett moves beyond parenting theory and focuses on what parents need most: simple, effective tools they can begin using immediately. Inside this book, you'll discover how to: Encourage cooperation without yelling, bribing, or threatening Re...

We lost our middle daughter for a few minutes at an overly packed amusement park when she was 8 years old. Through the shoulder-to-shoulder audience in front of a magic show, I could hear her calling out, "Daddy!!!" as I visually searched the crowd for my little red head. I'll never forget the gut-punch feeling I had, worrying that someone might snatch her and I'd never see her again.  That horrible moment probably lasted just minutes but it felt like forever! Thinking about that moment still causes me to tear up and moves me to be so thankful I found her, and to hug her so tight now when I see her as a grown woman and a mom herself. The memory of the pain also helped me over the years remain calm in moments when her behavior was driving me crazy as a little girl, and then as a teenager.   But relating this incident and what I felt as a Dad in no way overshadows what happened in Texas recently at Camp Mystic. When I read this one article , it brought back those feelin...

When a young child captures a specimen of nature in the backyard, one parent might tell them they can keep it in a jar, while the other tells them to take it out of the house and let it go. Instead, make this a learning opportunity for the child and a chance to demonstrate respect for nature. It's also a good time to reinforce time away from the screen and experiencing the world around them. Allow them to keep the creature for a brief time and study it. Take some digital pictures of it and allow the children to decide which ones are their favorites to keep. Use an online application with your child to research information on the critter, what it eats, and the most favorable conditions for its habitat.   When it's time to let it go, allow the children to decide where they’ll release it. You could use it as an excuse to visit your local state park to let it go there and look for other forms of nature. You might be fortunate to have butterfly garden close enough for you and the c...

Children experimenting as an animal is absolutely normal. They do it because they are simply exploring or perhaps, to gain some attention. Parents should allow their children to behave like a cat at home and you as the parent, simply ignore it. If your child answers you with a meow, you can simply tell them, "I don't understand what you're trying to tell me. I will listen to you when you speak like a little girl." Then just walk away. If your child enters an activity at home meowing like a cat, for example coming to the dinner table. Just calmly tell her that only people can eat at the table and when she returns to being a little girl, she will get food and the rest of the family will speak to her and listen to her again. In other words, don't try to control your child when they are in one of these exploring modes. Let it be and get involved when she tries to participate in the family. Do not meow back at her, do not crawl around on all fours with her and don'...

Preschoolers and young school-aged children easily can be frightened by images of disasters.  They live in a world somewhere between reality and fantasy, and often have difficulty distinguishing between the two. They also have not yet developed their full understanding of mortality, or whether something on television is far away or close by.  Here are some guidelines for handling children’s exposure to devastating events in the news.    Limit Their Exposure .  This is a good time to fall back on effectively managing their access to the television by limiting the amount of time they watch it.  If you have to watch it yourself, get your children involved in another activity at that time.  There are numerous university studies that confirm the high amount of violence on television and the effects on children.  Some of these effects include desensitization to the pain and suffering of others, more fearfulness in general, and increased aggressivene...

The child comes home after a sleep over and her mother has this fantasy that her daughter is going to come running in, wrap her arms around her mom and say, “I’m so happy to see you mom, I missed you. Let’s spend some quality time together.” But instead of the scene she imagined, her daughter declares that she’s bored and begins complaining about all the things she doesn’t have that her friend has. Mom does her best to ignore it until the thoughts of how ungrateful her child is and memories of all the money and time she’s spent on her becomes too much. What happens next is the last thing she wanted to have happen, but it does. Mom yells and her daughter yells back. Before too long, the day is wrecked, she sends her daughter to her room and their relationship is strained. And this all transpired because she gave her daughter permission to sleep over a friend’s house for the first time in a long time. So let’s give mom some skills for her to practice and some knowledge that might...

Those of you who follow my blog might be wondering what happened to me, since my last post was in June of 2016. A parent who attended one of parenting classes even called me this past week to find out when the next class was being held and asked for some advice for her sister struggling with two preteens. What happened was an adventure I set out on with the goal to fund phase two of the research project to create the evidence base I need for the Love, Limits & Lessons parenting class that many school systems are waiting for. The result was a training course I developed for workforce development youth workers around the country. Today, I'm finally back at my desk, preparing to teach my parenting course locally to struggling parents and also, giving abused or neglected children and teens a second chance at the Florida Sheriff's YouthVilla . Working with foster children can be a real challenge and in many ways, dealing with challenges different from those who have s...

I’m pleased to share the news that my fourth grandchild, Ashton John, was born last week. We arrived at the hospital just after he was born, and because both mother and son were doing great, we all got to meet and hold Ashton and welcome him to the family. After a while, the only person left to be introduced to Ashton was his sister Coraline, my 18-month-old granddaughter.   Coraline had already heard a lot about her baby brother. For months, her mom had been pointing to her belly and saying "This is your brother." If someone asked Coraline where her brother was, she would immediately point to her mom’s belly. And now it was time for her to meet him in person, so her dad brought her into the room.   She was very quiet as she cautiously walked over to the bed. She stopped and stared. After some encouragement, she climbed up onto the bed next to her mom and gently placed her small hand on her new brother. She even began to caress him and smile.   All of a sudden, the baby...

I was walking in back of you recently, leaving a local 'big box' retailer in the early evening hours and watched you struggle with your child. She appeared to be about seven or eight years of age and she was refusing to walk with you and kept lagging behind. A few times she even stopped on purpose and it was making you extremely mad. First of all, let me say that I've been in your shoes, having raised three children of my own and helped care for a few grand children as well. It's not easy dragging children along at the end of the day when you're on a tight schedule and feeling rushed, stressed, and tired.  I first want to thank you for not hitting that little girl, although you came awfully close to doing just that, a few times. I could see that she was testing you to your limits and your voice began to increase in volume and tone. I prayed that you didn't hit her when you got into your vehicle or when you got her back home. If I could have offered some ...

It may seem strange that I'm grouping television with the other two items, but when it comes to parenting, why shouldn't I? What do they all have in common? They can have dangerous effects on our children. Most parents do good jobs keeping their kids away from the later two, but when it comes to television programming, many others let their kids watch it without supervision. Yet experts continue to warn parents that letting their kids have unsupervised access to TV is not a good idea. In fact, in a recent online article , experts in Australia are concerned about coding changes that will allow mature content shows air well before kids are in bed. If experts are making this warning , why aren't all parents concerned? There are good things about television (or even Internett) programming and bad things. Instead of putting more controls on networks, websites and producers, isn't it time to put more pressure on parents to step up and supervise another thing that is int...

If you have attended any of my local workshops or have read any of my content, you know that I usually take the position that parents must take charge of their kids use of technology and the Internet. But what sometimes gets missed in my messages is that there are certain things our kids DO need and others they DON’T. One thing that leads parents to not withholding technology, devices and the Internet is their fear that their kids will be left out and fall behind in the digital age. Some even fear that their kids will lose friends or get bullied if they aren’t online and interacting with their peers. So, to help parents get it all straight, here are some guidelines on what our children and young teens should be allowed to have and what they shouldn’t. Keep in mind that these are guidelines are not set in stone as some families and situations may require specific modifications. GIVE YOUR KIDS THIS:  A Computer Keyboarding skills are critical for school age children and a centr...

When I moved my family from Southern New England to Nashville in 1996, my wife and I used this opportunity without extended family, to create some unique holiday experiences with the kids. It’s not the presents they will remember most, but the experiences that speak of Christmas or Hanukah. So what new experiences can you create this year? I asked my readers to share with me, lasting experiences they created to give their children a happier holiday. Here is what they shared. Lea Hatch and her husband own and run A Shot Above Entertainment, Inc. (WeAreAShotAbove.com) She says that the best Christmas experiences they had ever given their kids were a ride on the Polar Express, a tradition of sleeping under the Christmas tree as a family, renting a cabin in the mountains and waking up to snow on Christmas morning, and going to see Christmas lights in a limousine with warm apple cider and hot chocolate. The Best Book for Getting Kids to Behave! An anonymous  reader shared that i...

When a young child throws an object, it’s a parent’s reactive response to scold the child and take that object away from him. He may then pick up another object and throw that one, pushing the adult to anger and frustration. And if he doesn’t do it again right away, his fear of the parent may stop his actions for the moment, only to have him do it at some point later on. A parent asked me for help with her child throwing a toy at the ceiling light in his room. Another one asked me how to stop her son from trying to get his socks and underwear hooked on the fins of the ceiling fan in his room. In each of these situations, the parent’s first response was to punish the child by making him pay for damage to the ceiling light fan or even emptying his room of all objects. Melissa and Doug Sunny Patch Verdie Chameleon Beanbag Toss I’m certainly not going to advise allowing children to continue this destructive behavior, nor am I going to suggest punishing the child. We’ve been train...

It can be real frustrating raising kids today. It seems as if we do so much more for them than what our parents did for us. In many cases parents CAN do more for their kids because they can afford to do more; Disney trips, a vacation home, providing them with the latest toys or electronic gadgets, and so much more than what many of us had as children. When our children throw fits to get more, it can bring on feelings of resentfulness toward our children. We desperately want to say to them, “Do you even care about all that I’ve done for you up to this point? Do know how hard I had to work to earn the money I’ve spent on you to get you what you want? Do you know how many children there are who have very few clothes and are starving in [insert foreign country here]?” But if we go on in this way, nothing positive will come from it. They won’t understand lack if they’ve never experienced it. And it’s even more difficult for them to be appreciative of what they have when th...

When a parent comes to me for help with their kids and tells me about their challenges, my first step is to ask questions about this family’s situation. The information they share with me usually sheds some light on circumstances that may be contributing toward, or causing at least some of the challenges this parent is currently experiencing. Online Child Safety Some of those circumstances include the current condition of the relationship of the parents of the children; fighting, arguing, separation, divorce, etc. These situations factor in because children are affected directly by the adult emotional chaos that may be happening in the home or around the kids. Here are some suggestions for parenting more as a team, regardless of any issues that have come between the adults. Agree together on how various situations will be handled with the children, and implement them with conviction. You won’t have answers to all situations but you can begin discussing with each other how you w...

What happens if your 18-year-old or older child is behaving badly? What do you do then? This is a predicament that parents often ask me about and it’s probably one of the most frustrating situations that parents of older children have to deal with.  Here are just some of the issues that parents have shared with me that frustrate them; coming in loud and late at night even though house rules were established, skipping classes or getting bad grades when you’re paying for their education, or living destructive lives with substance abuse or extreme risk-taking. During the adolescent years, your teenage child develops “an allergy” toward you because they are going through a phase in life in which they must reject the whole premise that they were once a dependent little child. And because you, the parent, are attached to that image they have of themselves of once being dependent on you, they in essence are rejecting you as well. This rejection may appear as them not liking you, b...

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles and FreeDigitalPhotos.net Recently, I was asked what I learned along the way of building my nontraditional company, Cooperative Kids.  The writer was working on a piece on entrepreneurship and wanted to know if I had learned good things or bad things while growing my business.  Here is what I told her. I developed a love for helping parents with challenging behavior because of my own children. After taking a parenting class in 1994, I began to notice that my home was becoming more peaceful and my kids were becoming more cooperative.  All because of what I learned in the parenting class on becoming more proactive to the situations that tended to be more stressful with three kids.  I also learned to parent with little or no speaking. Get my entrepreneur book to show you how it's done I started my own parent education business as an affiliate of a larger organization and I did this all while being employed full time in Cor...