Hi, my duaghter just turned 2 and I’m having a difficult time with her listening. When I sit to homeschool her older siblings, play a board game or play on the iPad with them. She will pull her sister’s hair, stand on the table, through game pieces on the floor, pretty much ruin our time. I think she’s trying to get attention so I do try to give her some cards or paper and crayons, but of course she’s not able to sit for as long as we do so she will start acting up again 5/ 10 mins later. I explain to her no we don’t pull hair that hurts ( I point to her sister crying and tell her she sad because you pulled her hair) I also say we don’t stand on the table etc. She says ok and I do praise her for saying ok. She will also say sorry sometimes and I do explain that sorry means we are not going to do that again. I’m just not sure if there is anything else I’m missing because it seems like it’s only affective for about 10 mins max. I would greatly appreciate any advice.
Thank you!

Our oldest 16-year-old son recently went out of instructional control, walked away from me when we were discussing after I gave him a no answer which he did not accept or disagree appropriately to. I had done some pre-teaching on choices and let him know that if he went to Mom to try to divide us and get his way through her, causing conflict between her and I, that would be considered not dropping the subject and earning additional chores and consequences. I reminded him of this in Mom‘s presence, once he did it, and she delivered a message telling me in front of him that it’s OK for him to go talk to her. She doesn’t understand how this has led to significant conflicts and sends him a message that it’s an effective strategy because she will fight his battles for him. How should I handle this with her and with him?

On the flipside of that, I feel like it’s such an extreme difference between Mom and I, with her being modern progressive/permissive and me implementing TSG. The children clearly whine, throw tantrums, disagreeing inappropriately and demand things from her and she obliges. I feel like I should be at least describing the situation to them as best as I can, even if not with any consequences but just so that they can continue to see the contrast of their choices, depending on which parent they are interacting with. Is this generally OK, or is honoring her interactions with them better in a way that I completely stay out of it and don’t even give them any feedback or try to have parent counseling sessions with them?

I have noticed Mom using TSG type language, like I need you to… Come now and eat, the food is getting cold & similar types of instructions, but never actually providing any consequences to the children which they inevitably do not follow her instructions or accept no answers. I thought it was good to hear her saying“I need you to“ to the children, because maybe she’s realizing when I do it they pay attention more because they know there are consequences to their choices. I feel it can get confusing to the children, and the more that I might be able to point out to them that their mom can choose her own way of parenting, but with me when I use the same phrase or words, there are choices with consequences etc.

Thank you!

On a family vacation as a single mom with 3 kids ages (10, 7, 4), 7 yr old starts to act up when he didn’t get what he wanted and ends in rule of 3 (loss of privileges). Also hard to make him work or give chores during this vacation where daily activities are planned. Do I stop everything to address this child? Go home? I feel bad for the other kids who have to pay and suffer for what their sibling is doing. Should everyone else have to suffer because of this? What is the best way this can be addressed?

Our daughter is 7 1/2. We started TSG a couple of months ago and it has been going really well. My daughter is neurodivergent and the structure of the system has really helped her. However, I have two questions about her.

On the one hand, she does really well with corrections all day long, but after around 4pm, I can tell that she is just too mentally tired to do TSG. Even when I am calm and consistent, she gets out of instructional control on a near daily basis, especially as we approach bedtime. Then she’s too tired to do anything such as a major maintenance. The way I have been working around this is just giving her lots of pre-teaching, but even that doesn’t help when she’s too tired. So sometimes I will tell her before dinner that if she gets out of instructional control, and we have to start the rule of three or if we earn a major maintenance, then she will get her dinner, then have to go straight to bed, and then have to do her correction in the morning when she is fresher. Inevitably, she performs it really well in the morning. But that does not always work with my schedule as I have four other kids and work part time, and I also don’t feel like I’m getting the correction done right away so sometimes I forget, etc.
To complicate issues, she seems to love the structure of correction so much that she almost craves them. She especially loves sodas exercises. So I find myself very frequently, and on bad days constantly, in corrections with her. I don’t know if I am doing something wrong or if this is normal for kids who are neurodivergent.
I have talked to her a lot about how she is welcome to do sodas exercises whenever she wants to, and she doesn’t have to get into a correction to do them. I’ve also told her that I really like spending time with her, but I don’t love doing corrections with her and I would rather her not get into corrections and then we could spend our time doing something more fun.

Although I definitely feel like I already need refresher course, I do feel like I have been sticking to the scripts and systems pretty accurately, so that’s why I think the issue must be with her and not with me not doing things correctly. The only time the system “fails” in general is when I get lazy and don’t follow through on things, but I don’t think this is the issue with my daughter , and my other kids are not having the same problems. Thanks! (PS, if you don’t get to my question tomorrow, am I allowed to resubmit it the following week?)

My 5 year old is bright and have a good grasp. But she has low self confidence, and when trying to teach her something like a memory verse, after a few attempts if she can't remember, she takes it personally as an inability and gives up trying. It happens in games she is playing as well. With a regular few repetitions she has the ability learn but she doesn't seem to enjoy the process. As her mother how can I make learning an enjoyable process? How can I bring up her self-confidence?

I had a conversation with my child about him cutting off the last part of words and talking really fast which no one can understand. i implemented what you suggested of telling him to take a breath but even after he takes a breath he still talks really fast and cuts of the end of the words. Do I just let it go and let it be what it is? I still find myself correcting him every time he talks. I don't want to ruin our relationship. He is 10.

What consequence do you recommend for lying or being deceitful? Its a huge deal to me. I implemented an automatic rule of three for lying or hiding things intentionally. If they come clean then it would just be a major maintenance. What would you do?

My 4 year old daughter still sucks her thumb, which isn’t a huge deal in itself, but it’s basically her only way to calm down. In the past few months her emotions have ramped up (as they do at this age), meaning more tantrums and her thumb has been sucked totally raw every day. We decided a month ago to try to crack down on it because 1. It’s not good for her physically and 2. We feel she needs to develop better coping skills. Since we have started this, the tantrums are lasting soo long and she has an extremely hard time calming down. I sit down with her in the calm down spot trying to help her breathe deeply and calm down because she hyperventilates. But I can only stay there with her so long as I also have other children and things to attend to. Even when she’s finally calm enough to come out of the calm down spot, she’s never fully regulated because then every small thing after that reignites the entire process. I feel like trying to help her calm down is consuming many, many hours of most days at this point and it feels like no progress is being made. I’m exhausted. Also, we’ve caught her hiding, sneaking her thumb still and lying about it which is another problem. Should we just drop this thumb issue? Or do you have any strategies on how to teach little kids other ways to calm down?

My husband and I could use some help with learning how to help each other to be more calm while dealing with hard situations with the kids. When one of us isn't being as calm as we should with the kids, sometimes the other will want to remind them to handle it calmly, but won't because we don't want to undermine the other. What would be a constructive, healthy way to handle it if we notice the other isn't handling a situation calmly? We do sometimes offer to take over, which is hopefully a good start…

Dear Nicholeen, I need help with my 17 year old son, who is soon turning 18. He is constantly on his phone and computer to the point that it hard to have a conversation with him and connect. As soon as he arrives home he normally goes to his room and starts working on his school work. He is taking several AP classes in his senior year and has been able to keep good grades. My concern is the long hours in front of the screens. After school, he would normally spend 6-8 hours on his computer doing homework, talking to friends, and gaming. He stays up until 1-2 am and struggles with waking up and at school he is falling asleep in class. I have also noticed that he is not interested in applying for college. He is a bright kid and I am worried his technology utilization is now an addiction that is not allowing him to find plan for his future. To correct his behavior we have asked him to learn to manage his time and shut all electronics by latest 11 pm. He would follow this for a few days and he goes back to the old routine. We are thinking of removing all electronics, but wonder if there are other approaches given his age. Please advice. Thank you, CA