Bill Corbett

The parent who sent me this message was seeking help with choosing the right punishment for her teen’s bad choice.  I advised her that punishment rarely works in teaching children valuable lessons and actually can backfire and cause more problems than what the parents started with.  In most cases, the only things that a punishment accomplishes are making the child fearful of the parent and to doing a better job of hiding the misbehavior the next time. A more effective response to a child or teen’s bad choices is a consequence, rather than a punishment.  Consequences help a teen to make smarter choices and are healthier and more respectful forms of discipline.  The consequence can also be selected by both parent and teenager, and should be related directly to the misbehavior.  Over time, using more consequences instead of punishments can actually strengthen the relationship between the parent and the teen.  If this was the first time that you caug...

It’s nearly Christmas and I’m shopping at a department store.  A woman in the isle just ahead of me is pushing her shopping cart and begging her daughter to cooperate with her.  The little girl appears to be about four or five years of age and is dragging her feet and whining that she’s too tired to walk.  Her mom looks very tired and continues to plead with the child to keep moving.  Suddenly the little girl collapses on the floor and mom seems to be on the verge of ‘losing it.’  The woman picks up her daughter swiftly and sets her in the carriage. Once placed in the carriage, the little girl begins kicking her feet and the crying begins.  Soon, she’s demanding to get out of the carriage and her mom is doing everything in her power to hold back her anger. In that moment, I felt so bad for both of them and wished there was something I could do to help.  Both mom and daughter are probably feeling the stress of shopping, the holidays and who kno...

I produce and host a one-hour television show called Creating Cooperative Kids.  The show airs on many public access channels and helps parents and teachers with challenging behavior issues for raising cooperative and resilient children and teens. On a recent episode I featured a group of moms from Connecticut who all co-authored and self-published the book Just Ordinary Moms: True Stories by Moms for Moms in May of 2013.  You’ll find it on Amazon for sure. The book is filled with true stories of motherhood are addicting, entertaining, and heart-warming - you can't read just one!  Motherhood is wonderful, most of the time ~ except when difficult things happen, such as your teenage boy doesn't come home, your daughter is caught with her pants down or text messages lead to terrible truths. The book is also contains sixteen stories, two poems, plus a final haunting story that literally (as they indicated) washed up onto the beach sands of Cape Cod and w...

It’s definitely a different world from the one we experienced as children.  We work harder today to create comfortable lives for our families and it’s hard to accept that our children don’t seem to appreciate what they have and what we do.  In so many ways it’s become a world of instant gratification with just about everything available 24-7 for our convenience.  But it’s up to us to teach our children gratitude through the example we set and the discipline we use at home.     Some parents think that discipline simply involves actions you take when your children misbehave and act out.  It’s not!  As a variation of the word “disciple,” which means to teach or to train, discipline means “the training expected to produce a specific character or pattern of behavior, especially training that produces moral or mental improvement,” and it’s an opportunity we have every time we are with our children.  Parents need to spend more time and effo...

There are two things that I gather up when I bring in the regional weekend paper from my driveway:  my cup of coffee and a roll of duct tape.  Included in that special edition paper is a national column called “Living With Children,” written by a certain family psychologist who often times spouts nonsense that makes my head explode; hence my need for the duct tape. In his latest column, this psychologist tells parents that they should not be wasting their time to get their children to cooperate, but instead, should be delivering direct orders.  He compares this necessary action like an ‘army officer would give direct orders to a private’ (his words, not mine).  But many parents like you and I have realized that autocratic parenting went out generations ago.  Though some families still subscribe to this style of parenting, many have realized that it doesn’t work anymore. What this psychologist suggests is that parents must control their children and i...

Photo courtesy of photographer David Castillo Dominici and Free Digital Photos dot net In my work with parents and teachers on solving behavior challenges with children, I help them identify the problem, possible causes of the behavior, and then possible solutions for eliminating it. My goal is to send the adults away with a few simple step-by-step techniques they can implement immediately to bring about quick change at home or in the classroom. Here are four key questions to ask yourself to help you identify a current behavior issue and some common sense solutions to solve them. QUESTION # 1: Why can’t the behavior occur?  Adults react unnecessarily when children behave in ways that annoy or embarrass the adult, or add more chaos to their already stressed state of mind. Adults also react in this manner in response to feelings of fear that the child may fall down or get hurt in some fashion. Stop before you react unnecessarily and ask yourself, “What is the worst that could...

I’m a father, a grandfather and a stepfather, and am speaking on behalf of all the parents who feel strongly about protecting our children and young teens from what they don’t need to see on the Internet.  I’m addressing this to all the parents whose children have smart phones and tablets with internet connectivity and I’ll make it plain and simple, “Please don’t buy a data plan for that internet-ready device you are providing to your child or young teen!”  At the very least, please don’t let them leave the house with it. I have been called old fashioned, too controlling, or even up tight, so any other labels won’t surprise me… bring it on.  We consider ourselves “doing our job.”  We have worked hard at home, providing our children and grandchildren with supervised access to the Internet so that they can enjoy reasonable entertainment, log in to text books for school, and check the latest funny cat videos on Youtube.  Every one of them has done it all from...