Bad parenting is main thing that creates bad behavior in children. Most of the parents from New York are good, loving parents, but unfortunately – not all of them are. These parents put their children at risk of living an undisciplined life, with many psychological scars from their childhood.

There are many signs of bad parenting. Parents are to study as many of them as they can, so they could learn how to avoid them. It is not easy being a parent in New York and making mistakes is a normal thing for every human being, but bearing this signs in mind can prevent bad parenting. Accusing of being a bad parent, especially from your own child can be one of the hardest accusations you will ever face.

Disregarding your children too often, ignoring their needs and wishes, is a sign number one. Leaving them unsupervised or unprotected is also a sigh. When you have little children, you always have to keep one eye on them. Do not leave them alone and do not leave them with people you do not trust or do not know.

Avoid to misbehave in front of your children. Shouting and using insulting and rude words in front of your children increases the chances that they will also act like this. If you think your little kid’s swearing is cute – it is not. It is impolite, shows rude manners and can get you in embarrassing situations, as your child will not learn that it is ok to use vulgar words only when you let him and when you think it is funny.

Making decisions for your children lightly and without a lot of thinking usually results in bad judgment, which can seriously reflect your child’s life in the future. Even if you think it is not such a big deal, it may be a very big one for your child.

Parents make mistakes, but children do to. As we expect to be forgiven, we should also learn to forgive our children. Yelling at kids for every little thing is a sign of bad parenting. Parents in New York are often very busy and frustrated by their work, so they get home nervous or angry. Don’t take it out on your children. Don’t make them feel like they did something wrong and don’t punish them for something they didn’t even do.

Calling your children bad names and make them feel worthless is one of the worst things you can do. Some parents keep on insisting on their children getting better, improving in school or other activities, making them proud… They do all this without offering any help or building a model. This way you show your children that it is actually about you, not about them. You must never tell or show your kid that he or she is not important enough to you. You must never break your child's heart.
 

Parenting is not easy at all, but many parents from California say that parenting boys is even tougher than raising a girl, especially when they get older. Perhaps some of the parents with daughters will not agree with them, but, tougher or not, there are certainly some differences. Parents do not make these differences when they choose toys depending on sex of a baby, or blue and red pajamas. Dissimilarities shown in an early age of infants create the need that we have to raise our sons and daughters differently.

Generally, baby boys are medically more fragile that baby girls, so they may need more attention. They are also often much harder to calm down when they are stressed. On the contrary to this, as many parents are afraid that their son may not be tough enough and they will become “mama boys”, baby sons may experience less of emotional support, which can even affect their intellectual development. Therefore, parents should not be afraid of cuddling sons as well as daughters.

As our boys are getting little older, they begin to show violent behavior. Girls do that too, only they tend to stop sooner. Study shows that parents from California are more tolerate to boys than to girls, as that boys are expected to behave like this. Yes, men are a stronger sex, but that does not mean that your son should be proving that since he is three. If you are not careful and don’t stop this kind of behavior on time, instead of a strong man your son may grow up to be a violent men.

When your boy gets to preschool age, his imagination will run wild. Sometimes you probably won’t understand a word he is saying, when he tries to explain you something. They can create entire world of their own, and it may be very hard for you to enter. This is the world of magic, monsters, robots, super heroes… Do not try to break this world, just stand and watch, as it can be very fun, and don’t worry, in time your son will be able to understand the difference between the real and his imagination world.

This is also the time when your son will start choosing friends. Don’t be surprised or worried if he only pick other boys for friends. Nobody knows why, but this is entirely normal. Boys just think that other boys are more interesting than girls are. They tend to play in large groups and are more attracted to outdoors.

Your son won’t avoid girls forever. When he enters a preteen age and puberty, he will start noticing major differences between girls and boys, so this is the time for “the talk”. He has to know what puberty is even before it hits him, to avoid confusions and problems. If there are difficulties, especially with single mothers, parents can seek for help from sex educators.

Teen age is probably the biggest reason why some California parents think that parenting boys is harder. This is the time that you will probably not even recognize your sweet little boy one day, because of the change of appearance and attitude. His friends will become more important that his family and he will start spending hours in his room, as he will need to feel independent from you. This is also the time of increased sexualized feelings and that he will be embarrassed to discuss with you. It may be a good idea to find him a counselor until the time he is ready to open up to you.
 

We all have problems with our teens breaking the rules every now and then, that is what teens do best, test our limits. But it is one thing for teens to test our limits and another thing for our teens not know the rules, and that happens a lot as parents are not clear on the rules and things may get confusing. In those situations you will get the famous “Why am I grounded, you never told me I couldn’t do that”. And they may in fact be right, which is why it is best not only to explain the rules to our teens, but also to bind them with a parenting contract that lists all of the rules, so you will never have to hear “I didn’t know that”.

It is not hard to write your own contract with your own rules, it takes an hour or two, but if you don’t have the time or if you are not sure what to put as the rules here are the three links pointing you to parenting contracts to print and use. You can use them as a guideline for creating your own contract or you can simply print and use them as they are.

-      First contract link

-      Second contract link

-      Third contract link

Each of these website offers parenting contracts, some are free and some require a small fee. We feel that everything is covered in these contracts, you can find a contract specific for driving privileges, dating, alcohol, smoking, drugs, dress, chores, school, and many more.

These contracts are easy to use and they make your life much easier as everything will be clear to your teen and he will have a list to refer to once he is not sure about certain things. This is a simplified approach to rule setting, you sign, your teen signs, and the contract is sealed.

Parenting contracts are great for eliminating any confusing parts and gray areas of your rules and your home discipline. You know the rules, your teens know the rules and consequences and everything is clear, there will be no need for arguments about what happened and why they are grounded, everything is already explained, written or printed on a peace of paper and signed by all parties involved, so your teens are very clear on the rules.

Of course a parent’s contract doesn’t mean that all your troubles are solved, but it is a great step towards lowering the number of those troubles and getting your teen on the right track

We all know that the teen years are the years of change. Well, every single teen is unique, but there are certain types of behavior that can be considered as typical teen behavior and not necessarily the cause for teen behavior problem alarm.

Teens are bound to experiment; they are seeking independence after all. For most of the parents teen typical behavior will seem strange, the new look, new hair style, change of friends and attitudes, that can all lead to major concerns and questions, but not all of that means that there is something wrong with your teen, most of that is really just typical teen behavior.

So what qualifies as typical teen behavior? Let’s go over a few examples that are not necessarily a cause for panic. The number one sign that your teen has started his transitional stage and what decorates the title of typical teen behavior is the change of appearance. Teens like to keep up with the current style, that may be too much radical for the parents, but it is not a sign of drug abuse or anything like that. Unless this change of appearance is followed by several other dramatic changes in behavior there is no need to worry.

Exclusion from family life is also typical teen behavior. They are seeing independence, so it is just normal that they value their privacy more than before. With independence comes free will and their own opinions which will result in a few arguments and quarrels, that also doesn’t mean your teen is acting unusual.

Of course there are the unavoidable emotional issues, ups and downs of a teen emotional life that can’t be skipped. Your teen will experience depression, sadness and everything that goes with higher sense of emotions that are experienced during the confused teen years. But even though this falls under typical teen behavior there is a bit of reason to worry, your teen may need support in these moments and you should provide that support. This is especially important if your teen sadness, anxiety or depression lasts longer than usual.

And of course there is the inevitable experimentation with drugs and alcohol. Well, it’s not like it is really inevitable, but a very large number of teens, most of them, will experiment, and this is normal. They want to try out new things and considering that they feel like they were released from a leash this can turn into a reason for worry. This is exactly why you need to teach your teen about responsibilities early and let them have a share of their own freedom, so they wouldn’t feel this way when they get to the teen years. But again, this is quite normal and isn’t something to worry about unless you notice a drop in grades, shady activities and other drug or alcohol related signs.

These are healthy and perfectly normal examples of typical teen behavior. But when most of these signs combine all of a sudden there is a need to worry and then you really might have a teen behavior problem on your hands.
 

The teen years present the crossroad stage for children; these are the years when they gradually turn into adults. This is a very critical point in their life and as such it is normal for them to go through various physical and mental stages, so in other words, it is normal for teens to develop a rebellious and defiant behavior.

Teens reach a stage where they feel that they can no longer be treated as little kids, an in some cases they are right. Some parents simply fail to see the transitional period and continue to treat their teens as little kids; in return they get rebellious teens.

Since teens are just starting to figure out who they are, what they really like and who they want to be it is hard for them to accept all those changes. In return they start seeking independence from their parents. This is the stage where our teens gradually become separated from us and start having different thoughts and opinions, which is normal and should be supported in most cases. But in some cases teens become too addicted to independence and they become rebellious, and rebellious teens tend to be hard to deal with if not acted upon right away.

So how can we deal with our rebellious teens? Well first of all we need to show our support, they are in a transitional stage and they are more confused than they may look. They need our help and guidance to point them in the right direction and prevent bad things from happening. The first and the most important thing is to give our support to our children, no matter the circumstances.

Since there is a need for support there is also a need to show your teens that you love them and that you will do what is necessary to help them in any situation, Love and an ear or a shoulder to cry on can be the decisive factors in putting your rebellious teen back on the right path.

By listening to your teens, really listening to what they have to say, you will ensure that their trust in you is not misplaced. You need to be the person they will come to for help or your parenting life will be much harder. One thing that you really need to take advantage of is finding the right balance. Although your teens are no longer small children they are still far from being adults, so you need to stick to the same rules you set before. Well, some things may change with the years, but never let go of your authority, not for one second.

Although you need to keep your authority you also need to give your teens a certain amount of freedom, like what they are going to wear, or the music they listen to. Denying them choice in such matters will only make things worst. As things go they may make good and positive choices with the freedom you gave them, in those cases be sure to praise them and maybe even award them for their good decisions and actions.

These are simple things you can do to avoid dealing with a rebellious teenager, or to get your rebellious teen back to the light side of the force.
 

Troubled teenager is a phrase used to describe many types of issues teens face. A troubled teen or at risk teen can be anyone having to deal with learning disabilities, drug and alcohol abuse, anger issues, and almost anything you may think of regarding a teen issue that none of us would find positive.

So where do we get treatment for our troubled teens? Well it all depends on the issue of course; the first step would be to identify the problem and the cause of the problem, which in most cases would require a professional evaluation. Based on that evaluation your teen will be recommended a treatment for troubled teens that is well suited for the behavioral issue in question.

Specialty boarding schools are meant for teens dealing with various behavioral issues. Teens with learning disabilities, with emotional problems and social inability to adapt will greatly benefit from specialty boarding schools. They will learn there in a healthy and friendly environment how to deal with their issues through workshops, private and group therapy.

If it is a short term issue that may be dealt with using a direct approach the best possible course of action may be wilderness programs. These are good for regular kids that just seem to have lost their interest and faith in themselves. Teens go onto a wilderness trip for two or three weeks and in most cases they come back as they once were, vibrant, positive and full of life.

On the other hand if this is a hard behavior issue regarding discipline maybe boot camp is the best choice. Kids that enter a boot camp usually end up either regretting their previous decisions and go back willing to correct their mistakes out of fear that they will once again be sent to a boot camp or they embrace the hard boiled discipline.

There are also military schools, but military schools don’t deal with hard behavioral issues. These are not behavior modification programs or schools; they are a great place for slightly disoriented kids to learn discipline, structure and gain respect towards authority.

And if your teen has a drug abuse issue or alcohol abuse issue or even hard mental problems the best possible options are residential treatment centers.

There is a professional solution to any issue there is, especially for troubled teenagers. Treatment for troubled teenagers doesn’t necessarily have to end up in one of these places, it can be done at home, but only milder issues. After all, you wouldn’t want to risk your child’s well being.
 

There is always some issue between parents and teens, which is just normal. Some parents have an easy time while other struggle to raise their teens. The same goes for teenagers, some consider that they have great parents while other ascots can’t stand theirs.

We decided to create a little do’s and don’t guide for parents to handle their teen children and raise them in an appropriate manner. So let’s first focus on what to do:

-    Whenever your teen shows desirable type of behavior you should praise him or reward him this is the first step of positive parenting
-    Lead by example. The only way to expect your teens to behave positively is to set a proper example. This goes for everything you want from your child, you can’t ask for something you yourself can’t be used as an example or role model
-    Once you set your rules keep to them, you can’t expect your teens to follow the rules if you break them every now and then
-    If you make a mistake admit it, make sure that your teen knows that you are capable of making a mistake and even more importantly that you are able to admit it and take responsibility.
-    Develop constant communication with your teen. Ask regular questions each day, like how was their day etc. This will establish a relationship of trust and communication as it will let your teen know that you care for him and wish to know what is going in your teen’s life, which will make it much easier for you to talk to your teen if there is any problem.
-    Listen to what your teen has to say. Pay attention to his emotions and his point of view, that is the only way you will be able to understand the situation and where your teen is coming from.

On the other hand there is a smaller list of things you should never do:

-    Never over criticize your teen. We all do bad things, none of us is perfect, including you and your teen. There is always good and bad, so don’t just stick to the bad. It’s ok to criticize when it’s due, but don’t ever overdo it. Keep a balance between praising your child and criticizing.
-    We already said that you need to be a role model, so don’t ever say one thing and teach them to do something that you yourself don’t respect and do the opposite. Like smoking, it’s hard to teach your child not to smoke when you smoke.
-    We said to be consistent, so once you make a rule stick to it, don’t ever break it and don’t change the rules often.
-    When you make a mistake you should recognize it, never deny your mistakes in front of your teen as that will lead to the backfire effect.
-    You should never ignore your child’s moods. Depression, moodiness, anxiety, they can all be signs of a greater issue, so don’t just write them off as typical teen behavior.

That’s about it, a short guide for parents of teens. Of course if this was all that is needed to be a good parent all of our teens would be happy little elves, but it’s not. There is much more to know that only life can teach you, but this is a good pointer that will help you deal with your teens in a great way.
 

You know when they say about some troubled teen that he was born that way; he always had it in him? That is far from the truth, our kids are not born violent, just think about it for a second, have you ever heard of or seen a violent baby? I don’t think so, violence is a learned behavior and whether we want to admit it or not, most of the kids learn violent behavior at home, from their parents. They also learn violent behavior on school, from their peers and of course from television and games, but with proper parenting no matter what kind of movies you child watches he won’t become violent, so in the end it’s all up to the parents. It’s very easy to tell where the problem starts and to put blame, but how do we help out teens that have strayed from the right path?

In most cases the cause of teen violent behavior is violent history, they went through some form of abuse, were victim of violence, domestic or not, physical or sexual abuse. According to the statistics, one out of three abused children always turns out to be violent himself. Scary numbers, especially when you see the numbers of abused children every year, but a child doesn’t have to be directly abused to become violent, all that is needed for a child to develop violent behavior is to witness violence on a regular basis. What he sees as a child will be imprinted in his head for the rest of his life.

Every child that sees violence in school or at home too much, watches violent movies too much or plays too much video games is prone to becoming violent himself. But direct exposure to violence is not the only factor that makes violent teens; drug and alcohol abuse often leads to violent behavior. Presence of firearms in the house may be one of the influencing factors. Violence can come from different sources like social factors, wealth, unemployment and single parenting, so it’s all around us and if we are not careful out teens may become violent quite easy.

So when you think about it violence sparks are all around us and it may seem rather difficult to avoid teen violence, in most cases we have to give our best in order to prevent our children from becoming violent. If you think that isolating your child will do the trick you are wrong, it will only make things worse, so what is the best course of action when dealing with violent teens? Unfortunately there is no simple solution to this problem, but doing a few things and avoiding some situations will lower the chances of your teenager becoming violent.

It is our responsibility as parents to provide the best possible future for our kids, that also includes our behavior around them. If our children are becoming violent, that doesn’t mean that we were violent, but in the end we were the ones that allowed it to happen, so we are responsible. Look for the warning signs, if you notice them in time you can act upon it and prevent anything bad from happening.
 

Many parents struggle with their teens that don’t know what to do with themselves. You probably had to deal with your teen child a couple of times with his or hers brand new ideas that make your hair stand up straight. Or you had to deal with a teenager that lacks motivation and general interest in anything; these teens need a little push in the right direction. Now you can go about that with positive discipline or some other method, many parents choose to send their teenagers to specialty boarding schools, but there is a shorter alternative that helps teenagers in the most amazing of ways, the wilderness programs.

Wilderness programs are about going back to the nature and finding the best within. The best of the nature takes you and you just have to go with the flow as they say, in most cases wilderness programs provide excellent results, but the administrators of such programs claim that it’s all about the teenagers and the nature, they are here more for safety and advice than anything else.

Finding the best within, that is true. Kids and teenagers are still young and they are not corrupted, they are pure which gives them a great option and advantage to get back on the right path once they stray off it. Wilderness is what makes them think, they are alone with their thoughts, and nature has a way of sorting things out. Kids have no parents there so they don’t feel any pressure, they are free from distraction like computers, cell phones and peers, no school, no studying, just nature and time to think and self reflect.

What actually helps teenagers in the wilderness; it’s actually all about the basics. Teens return to basics, they unlearn some things and learn them again from scratch. They learn to let go of some things that are out of their reach and can’t be controlled and they learn to control what they can. Nature also presents challenges for these kids, and that is what a growing child needs, challenges, motivation and inspiration, with that they will go in the right direction by themselves. All in all kids learn to take responsibility.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not some mountain that has a fence and you let your children run around freely, they have supervision and they have experienced guides and therapist available 24/7. With freedom that nature brings, help from professionals and 6 to 8 weeks, your teen child may come back home as a new born person that gave up on all of the bad habits picked along the way.

Although the success rate of wilderness programs is very high in some cases they simply can’t help. In order to make sure that your child can benefit from a wilderness program you should first take him to an evaluation. And be sure that there is no harm in letting your child go several times if he likes it there, as we said in the beginning, this is a great experience for teenagers that they will remember and learn from it.
 

It is a common fact that if we do something too much and too often, no matter how bad it is, people will sooner or later start ignoring it, or as some will say, we got used to it. Well, there are some things we can never, we should never, get used to, like child abuse or abuse in general. There is more to abuse than just physical abuse, hitting someone, there are plenty more forms of abuse that children go through today. Anything from physical abuse, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse and even neglect is considered as abuse, and all of this can scar a child for life. A child that is neglected by his parents or guardians will never develop properly, so it is considered as abuse, and it should be, because in most cases neglect means not caring for the child, not providing basic needs like food, clothes and many other things.

We did start this with physical abuse so let’s talk about it for a while. It is the most common type of abuse and it is the easiest one to notice. We all know what falls under physical abuse so we won’t get into that, but do you know the effects of physical abuse on a person, besides physical damage? Kids that are abused physically mostly end up in two ways, they themselves become violent and abuse others, so it’s like a virus disease in some cases, or the total opposite, they become afraid, emotionally scarred and spend their life in fear and paranoia.

We also mentioned emotional abuse; this type of abuse is hard to notice. This type of abuse mostly comes from parents, but it can also come from other family members, friends and even teachers. The cause and effect of emotional abuse is a low self esteem and low self respect, such children are often scarred for life and this type of abuse can damage a child greatly, more than physical abuse.

Another form of abuse is sexual abuse, the most common type is rape, but there are other forms of sexual abuse, any case where a person is forced to have sex or engage in a sexual behavior is sexual abuse. Other forms of sexual abuse are sex between an adult and a minor and incest, sex between family members. This is one of the most feared types of abuse, as the consequences are many and each of them is terrible. Each type of sexual abuse carries it’s own weight and a person that has been through such an experience is very hard to work with, so the chances of going back to normal are very slim for some.

We also mentioned neglect, one of the most neglected types of abuse. It is very hard to notice this type of abuse, even harder to define it. Everything that you think is neglect of a child can be considered as neglect abuse if it goes on for a longer period of time. The worst type of neglect abuse is emotional neglect.

It is very hard to help teenagers that are abused because most often those children will try to avoid such subjects, you can rarely see an abused teen that wants to talk about what he has been through or to admit he is being abused. So the sad truth is that abuse is often discovered too late.