I have read a plethora of books dedicated to excellent parenting; unfortunately, none of them seemed to work for my child. I have tried sticker charts, positive reinforcement, commando parenting, time-out chairs, time-outs in the bedroom, bribery, chore charts, behavior charts, monetary incentives, removing toys, and yes, we even spanked once or twice, all to no avail.

Not one of those methods changed the behaviors we were battling with, even slightly. We would discipline, and as soon as the punishment was over, my son would be right back where we started. If we took something away, he would offer up more things for us to take; if we made sticker charts or progress reports, he would cheat on them, draw on them, or just generally ignore them. Time-outs went on for hours; bedroom time-outs resulted in broken hinges; bribery was met with a withering look; and chore charts were mocked or ignored.  The following programs I listed actually did have some positive impact on our parenting, so I am putting them here – check out the links below.

All programs have positives and negatives, and I don’t believe any program works 100% of the time. Anything can and should be tailored to your particular child’s personality and responses, but for us, these are 4 programs that I was able to use some part of to make a positive change to both our kids’ behavior.

Beyond Logic, consequences and control. Heather T Forbes

Celebrate Calm, Kirk and Casey Martin

Love and Logic, Jim Fay et al.

1,2,3, Magic Dr Thomas Phelan